Against the dark background of this contemporary civilization of well-being, even the arts tend to mingle, to lose their identity.

Evidently the arts, all the visual arts, are becoming more democratic in the worst sense of the word.

There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.

Today not even a universal fire could make the torrential poetic production of our time disappear. But it is exactly a question of production, that is, of hand-made products which are subject to the laws of taste and fashion.

Art is the production of objects for consumption, to be used and discarded while waiting for a new world in which man will have succeeded in freeing himself of everything, even of his own consciousness.

Happiness, for you we walk on a knife edge. To the eyes you are a flickering light, to the feet, thin ice that cracks; and so may no one touch you who loves you.