“Always be a poet, even in prose.”

“Who among us has not dreamt, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and rhyme, supple and staccato enough to adapt to the lyrical stirrings of the soul, the undulations of dreams, and sudden leaps of consciousness.”

“The Poet is a kinsman in the cloudsWho scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day;But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.”

“The Beautiful is always strange.”

“The beautiful is always bizarre.”

“THE OWLSby: Charles BaudelaireUNDER the overhanging yews,The dark owls sit in solemn state,Like stranger gods; by twos and twosTheir red eyes gleam. They meditate. Motionless thus they sit and dreamUntil that melancholy hourWhen, with the sun's last fading gleam,The nightly shades assume their power. From their still attitude the wiseWill learn with terror to despiseAll tumult, movement, and unrest; For he who follows every shade,Carries the memory in his breast,Of each unhappy journey made.'The Owls' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919.”

“Evil is committed without effort, naturally, fatally; goodness is always the product of some art.”