The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.

The artist ought no more to appear in his work than God in nature.

The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier

I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.

You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.