“Fate succombs many a species. One alone jeopardizes itself.”

“The windiest militant trashImportant Persons shoutIs not so crude as our wish:What mad Nijinsky wrote About DiaghilevIs true of the normal heart;For the error bred in the boneOf each woman and each manCraves what it cannot have;Not universal loveBut to be loved alone.”

“As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.”

“One cannot review a bad book without showing off.”

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”

“That the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion that I draw is that the only quality which all human being without exception possess is uniqueness: any characteristic, on the other hand, which one individual can be recognized as having in common with another, like red hair or the English language, implies the existence of other individual qualities which this classification excludes.”

“You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, as surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading, wear that same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look.”