To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary. - Edgar Allan Poe

"Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'"

"Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die."

"All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry."

"The idea of God, infinity, or spirit stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception."

"I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom."