Guillaume Apollinaire Quotes & Sayings

Now you are walking in Paris all alone in the crowd
As herds of bellowing buses drive by
Love's anguish tightens your throat
As if you were never to be loved again
If you lived in the old days you would enter a monastery
You are ashamed when you discover yourself reciting a prayer
You make fun of yourself and like the fire of Hell your laughter crackles
The sparks of your laugh gild the depths of your life
It's a painting hanging in a dark museum
And sometimes you go and look at it close up — Guillaume Apollinaire

Without artists, the order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Joy came always after pain. — Guillaume Apollinaire

I sing the joy of wandering and the pleasure of the wanderer's death — Guillaume Apollinaire

Paint with whatever material you please - with pipes, postage stamps, postcards or playing cards, painted paper, or newspapers. — Guillaume Apollinaire

We cannot carry our father's corpse with us everywhere we go. — Guillaume Apollinaire

II
I'm no longer myself in here
I know
I'm number fifteen in the eleventh
Row — Guillaume Apollinaire

It's raining women's voices
as if they had died
even in memory,
and it's raining you as well-
Marvellous encounters of my life
(o little drops!) — Guillaume Apollinaire

Six mirrors keep staring at one another
("Monday rue Christine") — Guillaume Apollinaire

Vase
[Why weep
Come back tomorrow
There are also poisonous flowers
and flowers always open in the evening
she loves the cinema
she has been in Russia
Love married with disdain
Pearl-studded watch
a trip to Montrouge
Maisons- Lafitte
and everything finishes in perfumes
remember
Let the flower bloom and let the fruit rot
and let the grain sprout
while the storms rage] — Guillaume Apollinaire

The plastic virtues: purity, unity, and truth, keep nature in subjection. — Guillaume Apollinaire

I don't want to work. I want to smoke. — Guillaume Apollinaire

My Autumn eternal O my spiritual season — Guillaume Apollinaire

Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Twentieth pupil of the centuries knows its stuff and bird-changed this century like Jesus climbs the sky. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Overhead in the Paris sky
Two airplanes fought it out one day
And one of them was my whole youth
The other was my days to come — Guillaume Apollinaire

All the words I have to say have turned into stars. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. — Guillaume Apollinaire

How slow life is, how violent hope is. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Geometry is to the plastic arts what grammar is to the art of the writer. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Without poets, without artists ... everything would fall apart into chaos. There would be no more seasons, no more civilizations, no more thought, no more humanity, no more life even; and impotent darkness would reign forever. Poets and artists together determine the features of their age, and the future meekly conforms to their edit. — Guillaume Apollinaire

I had the courage to look backward
The ghosts of my days — Guillaume Apollinaire

It's raining my soul, it's raining, but it's raining dead eyes. — Guillaume Apollinaire

When man wanted to make a machine that would walk he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Oh Paris
From red to green all the yellow dies away
Paris Vancouver Hyeres Maintenon New York and the Antilles
The window opens like an orange
The beautiful fruit of light
("Windows") — Guillaume Apollinaire

Matisse renovates rather than innovates. — Guillaume Apollinaire

My blue mask as a God puts on his sky — Guillaume Apollinaire

Joy always came after pain. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, we're afraid!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, We will fall!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Artists are, above all, men who want to become inhuman. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Today you are walking in Paris the women are all steeped in blood
It was and I'd rather not remember it was at beauty's decline — Guillaume Apollinaire

One can't carry one's father's corpse about everywhere. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies on the wind. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Memory is a hunting horn
Its tone dies out along the wind. — Guillaume Apollinaire

You alone in Europe are not ancient oh Christianity
The most modern European is you Pope Pius X
And you whom the windows observe shame keeps you
From entering a church and confessing this morning
You read the prospectuses the catalogues the billboards that sing aloud
That's the poetry this morning and for the prose there are the newspapers
There are the 25 centime serials full of murder mysteries
Portraits of great men and a thousand different headlines
("Zone") — Guillaume Apollinaire

The domain of the imagination is reality. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Automn ill and adored
You die when the hurricane blows in the roseries
When it has snowed
In the orchard trees

Poor automn
Dead in whiteness and riches
Of snow and ripe fruits
Deep in the sky
The sparrow hawks cry
Over the sprites with green hair dwarfs
Who've never been loved

Inthe far tree-lines
The stags are groaning

And how I love O season how I love your rumbling
The falling fruits that no one gathers
The wind in the forest that are tumbling
All their tears in automn leaf by leaf
The leaves
You press
A crowd
That flows
The life
That goes — Guillaume Apollinaire

The new painters do not propose, any more than did their predecessors, to be geometers. But it may be said that geometry is to the plastic arts what grammar is to the art of the writer. Today, scholars no longer limit themselves to the three dimensions of Euclid. The painters have been lead quite naturally, one might say by intuition, to preoccupy themselves with the new possibilities of spatial measurement which, in the language of the modern studios, are designated by the term fourth dimension. — Guillaume Apollinaire

People quickly grow accustomed to being the slaves of mystery. — Guillaume Apollinaire

A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature. — Guillaume Apollinaire

In this mirror,
I am enclosed a live and real as you.
Imagine angels and not like the reflections. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Horse
[Man you will find here
a new representation of the universe
at its most poetic and most modern
Man man man man man man
Give yourself up to this art where the sublime
does not exclude charm
and brilliancy does not blur the nuance
it is now or never the moment
to be sensitive to poetry for it dominates
all dreadfully
Guillaume Apollinaire] — Guillaume Apollinaire

And God said come to the edge." "I can't. I'm afraid." "Come to the edge." "I can't. I'll fall" "Come to the edge." I went to the edge and God pushed me ... ... .and I flew. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Color is the fruit of life. — Guillaume Apollinaire

When man resolved to imitate walking, he invented the wheel, which does not look like a leg. In doing this, he was practicing surrealism without knowing it. — Guillaume Apollinaire

I hate artists who are not of their time. — Guillaume Apollinaire

I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Come to the edge," he said.
They said, "We are afraid."
Come to the edge," he said.
They came.
He pushed them ... and they flew. — Guillaume Apollinaire

Without artists, the sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. — Guillaume Apollinaire