Paul Eluard Quotes & Sayings

The poet is rather one who inspires than one inspired. — Paul Eluard

The poet is much more the one who inspires,than the one who is inspired. — Paul Eluard

I am spilling fire on every side. But I do not trust the 500 billion flames which I am training like dogs. — Paul Eluard

Farewell Sadness
Hello Sadness
You are inscribed in the lines on the ceiling
You are inscribed in the eyes that I love
You are not poverty absolutely
Since the poorest of lips denounce you
Ah with a smile
Bonjour Tristesse
Love of kind bodies
Power of love
From which kindness rises
Like a bodiless monster
Unattached head
Sadness beautiful face. — Paul Eluard

I messed up the hairdo of the greatest criminal in Chaldea. — Paul Eluard

She is always unwilling to understand, to listen,
She laughs to hide her fear of herself.
She has always walked beneath the arches of nights
And wherever she went
She left
The mark of broken things. — Paul Eluard

All my desires are born of my dreams. And I have proven my love with words. To what fantastic creatures have I entrusted myself, in what dolorous and ravishing world has my imagination enclosed me? I am sure of having been loved in the most mysterious of domains, my own. The language of my love does not belong to human language, my human body does not touch the flesh of my love. My amorous imagination has always been constant and high enough so that nothing could attempt to convince me of error. — Paul Eluard

The poet is he who inspires, rather than he who is inspired. — Paul Eluard

I have said three words too many, too bad, I take them back, I add them. I have several times deserved death, especially in Greece, where I sawed up the palette of an old man who stalked my lady friends right up to my camp bed. I messed up the hairdo of the greatest criminal in Chaldea. For all that I did not have to make use of my daughter native to the lower part of her father's vision, all the plains as far as the eye can see which eat hampers full of mother of pearl. — Paul Eluard

Elephants are contagious — Paul Eluard

The earth is blue like an orange. — Paul Eluard

And by the power of a word, I begin my life again. — Paul Eluard

A woman is more beautiful than the world in which I live; and so I close my eyes. — Paul Eluard

Your voice, your eyes, your hands, your lips
Our silence, our words
Light that goes, light that returns
A single smile between us
In quest of knowledge I watched night create day
O beloved of all, beloved of one alone
your mouth silently promised to be happy
Away, away, says hate
Closer, closer, says love
A caress leads us from our infancy
Increasingly I see the human form as a lovers' dialogue
The heart has but one mouth
Everything by chance
All words without thought
Sentiments adrift
A glance, a word, because I love you
Everything moves
We must advance to live
Aim straight ahead toward those you love
I went toward you, endlessly toward the light
If you smile, it enfolds me all the better
The rays of your arms pierce the mist. — Paul Eluard

The curve of your eyes goes around my heart,
A round of dance and sweetness,
Halo of time, nocturnal and safe cradle,
And if I don't know any more all that I've lived through
It's because I haven't always been seen by you. — Paul Eluard

Hope raises no dust. — Paul Eluard

Quand les cimes de notre ciel se rejoindront Ma maison aura un toit.
(When the peaks of our sky come together My house will have a roof.) — Paul Eluard

I was also caught by absence in all its forms. — Paul Eluard

Even when we sleep we watch over one another. — Paul Eluard

I cannot be known Better than you know me Your eyes in which we sleep We together Have made for my man's gleam A better fate than for the common nights Your eyes in which I travel Have given to signs along the roads A meaning alien to the earth In your eyes who reveal to us Our endless solitude Are no longer what they thought themselves to be You cannot be known Better than I know you. — Paul Eluard

The front windows as are the watchmen of grief - I've been looking beyond expectation - Beyond myself - and I do not know as I love you - Which one of us is missing. — Paul Eluard

There is another world, and it is in this one. — Paul Eluard

The language of my love does not belong to human language, my human body does not touch the flesh of my love. — Paul Eluard

We want to be, when we are young, A little man. I would like to be a big child, Stronger and fairer than a man, And more lucid than a child. — Paul Eluard

She is standing on my lids
And her hair is in my hair
She has the colour of my eye
She has the body of my hand
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky
She will never close her eyes
And she does not let me sleep
And her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
And me laugh cry and laugh
Speak when I have nothing to say — Paul Eluard

Your eyes in which I travel
Have given to signs along the roads
A meaning alien to the earth. — Paul Eluard