"Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak in the first act, would weep for joy in the second and in the last would fall backward down a flight of stairs."

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“Art is science made clear.”

“Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.”

“Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.”

“Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.”

“Poetry is indispensable — if I only knew what for.”

“Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.”

Resonant Thoughts

"You ask a thing ill-suited to my years, to yours both offensive and disgusting. For how can it become me, who am near forty, to write of love, or you, that are in your fifties, to read of it That is a…"

— Pope Pius II

Religion1405–1464

#time

"So last January, with the beginning of a snowstorm in the air about me—and if it settled on me it would betray me!—weary, cold, painful, inexpressibly wretched, and still but half convinced of my invi…"

— H. G. Wells

Literature1866–1946

#life

"In the choice of a position, we must pay some regard to the enemy's collected force, and to our divided condition, in which the army must of necessity be cantoned. The enemy now appear to be putting t…"

— Nathanael Greene

Military1742–1786

#freedom

"He had the pleasing face and he was very virtuous. His speaking style was so delightful that people were not tired of hearing his words and his bright face was very charming. Khomeini said about him: …"

— Ata'ollah Ashrafi Esfahani

Religion1902–1982

#happiness