Literary Birthday - Paul Valéry, 30 October

Happy Birthday, Paul Valéry, born 30 October 1871, died 20 July 1945

Seven Paul Valéry Quotes

1. The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. 
2. A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
3. Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
4. Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken. 
5. What one wrote playfully, another reads with tension and passion; what one wrote with tension and passion, another reads playfully.
6. To enter into your own mind you need to be armed to the teeth.
7. Poetry is a separate language, or more specifically, a language within a language.

Paul Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. Along with Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé, Valéry is considered one the most important Symbolist writers. His self-conscious and philosophical style influenced T. S. Eliot and John Ashbery. 

From Writers Write