So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.
The philosophy of poetry must acknowledge that the poetic act has no past, at least no recent past, in which its preparation and appearance could be followed.
To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.
We must listen to poets.
Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade...I live in great density...Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage...In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.
A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.
Poetry is one of the destinies of speech... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language.
The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the night does not belong to us. It is not the possession of our being. Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.
The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.
Reverie is not a mind vacuum. It is rather the gift of an hour which knows the plenitude of the soul.
The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know.
If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.
Ideas are refined and multiplied in the commerce of minds. In their splendor, images effect a very simple communion of souls.
