In this admiration, which goes beyond the passivity of contemplative attitudes, the joy of reading appears to be the reflection of the joy of writing… - Gaston Bachelard

"In my opinion, for Baudelaire, the word vast is a vocal value. It is a word that is pronounced, never only read, never only seen in the objects to which it is attached. It is one of those words that a writer always speaks softly while he is writing it. Whether in verse or in prose, it has a poetic effect, which is also an effect of vocal poetry. This word immediately stands out from the words that surround it, from the images, and perhaps, even, from the thought. It is a "power of the word." Indeed, whenever we read this word in the measure of one of Baudelaire's verses, or in the periods of his prose poems, we have the impression that he forces us to pronounce it. The word vast, then, is a vocable of breath. It is placed on our breathing, which must be slow and calm. And the fact is that always, in Baudelaire's poetics, the word vast evokes calm, peace and serenity. It expresses a vital, intimate conviction. It transmits to our ears the echo of the secret recesses of our being. For this word bears the mark of gravity, it is the enemy of turmoil, opposed to the vocal exaggerations of declamation. In diction enslaved to strict measure, it would be shattered. The word vast must reign over the peaceful silence of being."

El sueño de la noche no nos pertenece. No es nuestra propiedad. Para nosotros es un raptor, el más desconcertante de los raptores: nos arrebata nuestro ser. Las noches no tienen historia. No se ligan unas a otras. Y cuando se ha vivido mucho, cuando ya se han vivido unas veinte mil noches, nunca sabemos en qué noche antigua, muy antigua, hemos partido hacia el sueño. La noche no tiene futuro. Sin duda, hay noches menos negras en las que nuestro ser del días vive aún bastante como para negociar con sus recuerdos.

"In my Paris apartment, when a neighbor drives nails into the wall at an undue hour, I "naturalize" the noise by imagining that I am in my house in Dijon, where I have a garden. And finding everything I hear quite natural, I say to myself: "That's my woodpecker at work in the acacia tree." This is my method for obtaining calm when things disturb me."