Away with those perfumes that do me harm! — Stéphane Mallarmé

"Yes, I know, we are merely empty forms of matter, but we are indeed sublime in having invented God and our soul. So sublime, my friend, that I want to gaze upon matter, fully conscious that it exists, and yet launching itself madly into Dream, despite its knowl edge that Dream has no existence, extolling the Soul and all the divine impressions of that kind which have collected within us from the beginning of time and proclaiming, in the face of the Void which is truth, these glorious lies!"

"Jinvente une langue qui doit nécessairement jaillir dune poétique très nouvelle, que je pourrais définir en ces deux mots: Peindre, non la chose, mais leffet quelle produit."

"It is in front of the paper that the artist creates himself."

"Hyperbole! can you not rise In triumph from my memory, A modern magic spell devise As from an ironbound grammary: For I inaugurate through science The hymn of all hearts spiritual In the labor of my patience, Atlas, herbal, ritual."

"La chair est triste, hélas! et jai lu tous les livres."

"Degas was discussing poetry with Mallarmé; "It isnt ideas Im short of... Ive got too many" [Ce ne sont pas les idées qui me manquent... Jen ai trop], said Degas. "But Degas," replied Mallarmé, "you cant make a poem with ideas. … You make it with words." [Mais, Degas, ce nest point avec des idées que lon fait des vers. . . . Cest avec des mots.]"