I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?

Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.

I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.

After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.

The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.

There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them.

True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.

When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.

You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.

The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.

Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.

If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.

In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.