“It's necessary to use suffering. Otherwise, one is used by it.”

“My queerness is not a vice, is not deliberate, and harms no one.”

“Youth is not a question of years: one is young or old from birth.”

“ When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks.”

“At first, when an idea, a poem, or the desire to write takes hold of you, work is a pleasure, a delight, and your enthusiasm knows no bounds. But later on you work with difficulty, doggedly, desperately. For once you have committed yourself to a particular work, inspiration changes its form and becomes an obsession, like a love-affair… which haunts you night and day! Once at grips with a work, we must master it completely before we can recover our idleness.”

“Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.”

“Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction.”