The virtue of pride, which was once the beauty of mankind, has given place to that fount of ugliness, Christian humility.

Collage is the noble conquest of the irrational, the coupling of two realities, irreconcilable in appearance, upon a plane which apparently does not suit them.

Creativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition.

Painting is neither decorative amusement, nor the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

When the artist finds himself he is lost. The fact that he has succeeded in never finding himself is regarded by Max Ernst as his only lasting achievement.

All good ideas arrive by chance.

Art has nothing to do with taste. Art is not there to be tasted

The artist is a spectator, indifferent or impassioned, at the birth of his work, and observes the phases of its development.

I have never seen a beautiful painting of a beautiful woman. But you can take an ugly woman and make a beautiful painting of her. It is the painting itself that should be beautiful.

Before he goes into the water, a diver cannot know what he will bring back.

Collage is a supersensitive and scrupulously accurate instrument, similar to a seismograph, which is able to record the exact amount of the possibility of human happiness at any period.

To properly invest your time, first find out your calling.

My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I attack.

What gets me about the United States is that it pretends to be honest and therefore has so little room to move toward hope.

It is so common to write autobiographical fiction in which your own experience is thinly disguised.

Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies.

Government power is always abused by seizing and perverting the law. And with few exceptions, government always determines what is law.

In little pockets of conversation, old men were telling stories of ancient floods. Women were talking of about how much rain there'd been in other towns -- Paragould, Lepanto, and Manila.

The corn that makes the holy bread By which the soul of man is fed, The holy bread, the food unpriced, Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.

Yoga is the cessation of mind.

You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.