Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880-1918, Italian-born French Poet, Critic Quotes

Come to the edge, He said. They said, "We are afraid." "Come to the edge," He said. They came. He pushed them... And they flew.

Come to the edgeHe said. They said: We are afraid.Come to the edgeHe said. They came.He pushed them, andthey flew...

Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Come to the edge/ No, we will fall/ Come to the edge/ No, we will fall/ They came./ He pushed them. And they flew.

Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies on the wind.

To insist on purity is to baptize instinct, to humanize art, and to deify personality.

Come to the edge, He said. They said, We are afraid. Come to the edge, He said. They came. He pushed them...and they flew.

Come to the edge, He said. They said, We are afraid. Come to the edge, He said. They cam. He pushed them... and they flew.

We cannot carry our father's corpse with us everywhere we go.