“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”

See, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I’m profoundly convinced that that’s a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks.

An artist is always out of step with the time. He has to be.

Criticism is the essence of creation.

Hollywood is a gold-plated suburb suitable for golfers, gardeners, assorted middlemen, and contented movies stars. I am none of these things.

The classy gangster is a Hollywood invention.

I started at the top and worked my way down.

When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society.

People are losing the capacity to listen to words or follow ideas.

What’s happening now is what happened before, and often what’s going to happen again sometime or other.

I love informality. I hate dressing up. I hate to be conventional – and I hate every kind of snob.

Now I’m an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needles fall off me replace them with medallions.

There are three intolerable things in life – cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women.

A man is not from where he is born, but where he chooses to die.

I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.

Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

Your absence is the loudest presence I have ever known.

All those lavenders seemed purple in love they turned lilac without him.

I’m working hard with more determination than ever. My success at the Salon led to my selling several paintings and since your absence I have made 800 francs; I hope, when I have contracts with more dealers, it will be better still.

Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.

Light is much more than the absence of darkness. And you, my love, are much more than the absence of him.

Life without smoking is like the smoke without the roast.

In the absence of feedback, people will fill in the blanks with a negative. They will assume you don’t care about them or don’t like them.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.