Eugenio Montale

"In reality art is always for everyone and for no one."

"Mass communication, radio, and especially television, have attempted, not without success, to annihilate every possibility of solitude and reflection."

"Narrative art, the novel, from Murasaki to Proust, has produced great works of poetry."

"Poetry is the art which is technically within the grasp of everyone: a piece of paper and a pencil and one is ready."

"Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images, but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one."

"There is also poetry written to be shouted in a square in front of an enthusiastic crowd. This occurs especially in countries where authoritarian regimes are in power."

"There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry."

"This proves that great lyric poetry can die, be reborn, die again, but will always remain one of the most outstanding creations of the human soul."

"True poetry is similar to certain pictures whose owner is unknown and which only a few initiated people know."