“As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy of life.”

“And, drunk with my own madness, I shouted at him furiously, "Make life beautiful! Make life beautiful!”

“The Devil pulls the strings which make us dance;We find delight in the most loathsome things;Some furtherance of Hell each new day brings,And yet we feel no horror in that rank advance.”

“Laments of an IcarusThe paramours of courtesansAre well and satisfied, content.But as for me my limbs are rent Because I clasped the clouds as mine.I owe it to the peerless starsWhich flame in the remotest skyThat I see only with spent eyesRemembered suns I knew before.In vain I had at heart to findThe center and the end of space.Beneath some burning, unknown gazeI feel my very wings unpinnedAnd, burned because I beauty loved,I shall not know the highest bliss,And give my name to the abyssWhich waits to claim me as its own.”

“Forest, I fear you! In my ruined heart your roaring wakens the same agony as in cathedrals when the organ moans and from the depths I hear that I am damned.”

“My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.”

“I have felt the wind on the wing of madness.”