Gaston Bachelard

There is no original truth, only original error.

Poetry is one of the destinies of speech... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language.

The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the night does not belong to us. It is not the possession of our being. Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.

Literary imagination is an aesthetic object offered by a writer to a lover of books.

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.

The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams.

A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.