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I am for poetry that is admired by peasant and aristocrat alike.

Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.

I am not quite a poet but I am something of the kind.

If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart.

Bottom line, I have to follow what my soul says, or my spirit. And my spirit said that poetry and the arts should be without borders, should be without political borders.

It is in fact agreed that I am the plague, the cholera of the benevolent and generous men who are interested in art and that, when I show myself with my plasters, even the Emperor of the Sahara would flee.

I try to stay a civilian, to live as a human, not as a poet.

My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.