“At five in the afternoon. It was exactly five in the afternoon. A boy brought the white sheet at five in the afternoon. A frail of lime ready prepared at five in the afternoon. The rest was death, and death alone”

“A poet must be a professor of the five senses and must open doors among them.”

“The weeping of the guitar begins. The goblets of dawn are smashed. The weeping of the guitar begins. Useless to silence it. Impossible to silence it. It weeps monotonously as water weeps as the wind weeps over snowfields. Impossible to silence it. It weeps for distant things. Hot southern sands yearning for white camellias. Weeps arrow without target evening without morning and the first dead bird on the branch. Oh, guitar! Heart mortally wounded by five swords.”

“Death laid its eggs in the wound”

“The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word. He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices: the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art.”

“Everyone understands the pain that accompanies death,but genuine pain doesn't live in the spirit,nor in the air, nor in our lives,nor on these terraces of billowing smoke.The genuine pain that keeps everything awakeis a tiny, infinite burnon the innocent eyes of other systems.”

“The little boy was looking for his voice.(The king of the crickets had it.)In a drop of waterthe little boy was looking for his voice.I do not want it for speaking with;I will make a ring of itso that he may wear my silenceon his little fingerIn a drop of waterthe little boy was looking for his voice.(The captive voice, far away,put on a cricket's clothes.)- The Little Mute BoyTranslated by William S. Merwin”