“My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.”

“Great minds with great ideas usually share in the midst of their persecution”

“When the door to my writing chamber gasps shut and the almost imperceptible sigh of a rose petal falls on my desk, I know that my muse is present.”

“I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it.... We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”

“First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”

“Oh! To live alone, always alone, in the midst of the crowd that surrounds me, without a word of love ever coming to gladden my soul, without a friendly hand reaching out to me!”