But poets were not considered dangerous and they were advised to exercise self-censorship. At most, poets were requested not to write at all. I took advantage of this negative liberty.

There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.

Mass communication, radio, and especially television, have attempted, not without success, to annihilate every possibility of solitude and reflection.

I have always knocked at the door of that wonderful and terrible enigma which is life.

For my part, if I consider poetry as an object, I maintain that it is born of the necessity of adding a vocal sound (speech) to the hammering of the first tribal music.

Man cannot produce a single work without the assistance of the slow, assiduous, corrosive worm of thought.