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Degas was discussing poetry with Mallarmé; "It isn't ideas I'm short of... I've got too many" [Ce ne sont pas les idées qui me manquent... J'en ai trop], said Degas. "But Degas," replied Mallarmé, "you can't make a poem with ideas. ... You make it with words." [Mais, Degas, ce n'est point avec des idées que l'on fait des vers. . . . C'est avec des mots.]
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From Degas, Manet, Morisot by Paul Valéry (trans. David Paul), Princeton University Press, 1960.

 

Stephane Mallarme

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It isn't ideas I'm short of..I've got too many (on discussing poetry with Mallarme,who replied)'Degas ,you can't make a poem with ideas-you make it with words;

 

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Forain s'était construit un hôtel, et fil installer le téléphone presque nouveau. Il voulut d'abord "épater" Degas. Il l'invite ? dîner, previent un compere, qui, pendant le dîner, appelle Forain ? l'appareil. Quelque mots échangé, Forain revient. Degas lui dit: "C'est ça le téléphone? On vous sonne et vous y allez."

 

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Visitor: Monsieur Degas, were there any of Monet's pictures at the Durand-Ruel exhibition?
Degas: Why, I met Monet himself there, and I said to him, "Let me get out of here. Those reflections in the water hurt my eyes!" His pictures were always too draughty for me. If it had been any worse I should have had to turn up my coat collar.

 

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Ce n'est pas avec des idées qu'on fait des vers, c'est avec des mots.

 

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All Paris knew him as a fighter, a recluse, guarding his privacy with cruel, crushing words. The habitués of the Paris boulevards defended themselves against his scorn by accusing him of insincerity. "Degas," they said, "would like to see his reflection in a boulevard window in order to give himself the satisfaction of breaking the plate-glass with his cane."

 

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