The demand that poetry be immediately understandable to everyone is truly absurd.

Art cannot progress by sticking to what is already familiar.

In the end, time is the best ally of poets. It clarifies their works and makes them accessible to an ever widening circle of readers.

The solitude of the poet is the uniqueness of his experience, and the particulaity of his sensitivity and imagination.

The spirit of the age is not synonymous with what the public likes.

The public, regardless of its social origin, likes, above all, that which is easily accessible.

The age of sages is past; the age of specialists has come.

Talent--that is to say, the ability to see the world in a unique way--matures and grows in isolation.

Solitude is an essential element of poetry.

Environment grinds us, forces us to adjust, and--consciously or not--kills our most precious possession: that something which enables us to speak with ourselves and with God.

Tradition remains alive only when we struggle with it.

Now, my novel begins. No, now I begin my novel—and yet I cannot decide whether to call myself I or she.

I may be dying, but I am surrounded by loving, caring souls. How many people can say that?

Personally I would like to see that the nuclear age, in terms of power, does come, because there's no long-term future for developing countries without nuclear power.

If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything.

Art and religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstacy.

Perhaps it is because Venice is both liquid and solid, both air and stone, that it somehow combines all the elements crucial to make our imaginations ignite and turn fantasies into realities.

Self-preservation is an important thing to me.

My word is my pride, the wisdom is weak, and that's word from the wise.

No police or military in the world can protect people who are cowards.

With voice-over, you have to pretend like youre three, except you can talk and read.