“The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.”

No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.

Human imagination is immensely poorer than reality.

The only reason why we are always thinking of our own ego is that we have to live with it more continuously than with anyone else’s.

For women, history does not exist. Murasaki, Sappho, and Madame Lafayette might be their own contemporaries.

The slowness of time, for a man who knows nothing will happen, is brutal.

The world, the future, is now within you as your past, as experience, skill in technique, and the rich, everlasting mystery is found to be childish you that, at the time, you made no effort to possess.

We must never say, even in fun, that we are disheartened, because someone might take us at our word.

Nowadays, suicide is just a way of disappearing. It is carried out timidly, quietly, and falls flat. It is no longer an action, only a submission.

What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.

The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped.

The problems that agitate one generation are exstinguished for the next, not because they have been solved but because the general lack of interest sweeps them away.

Why does a man who is truly in love insist that this relationship must continue and be “lifelong”? Because life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic. Who would want to wake up halfway through an operation?

One must look for one thing only, to find many.

Many men on the point of an edifying death would be furious if they were suddenly restored to health.

Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long.

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.

At the end of the day, I just do my job. I love my art. But I genuinely want to change the world. I’m very generous, and I really want people to see that I am – that’s really it.

Your life can become the background for the art you create.

I feel I have a responsibility to myself, a responsibility to explain where we’re coming from. Because a song or the performance of a song is a lot like a work of art.

If you work at rap and look at it as an art, the money will come. But if you try to get the money, it’ll just always be shallow.

I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.

Boxing’s in my genes. I come from a fighting background. My dad and both my uncles were good boxers. I’m blessed with the art of war.

Despite my extremely modest prices, dealers and art lovers are turning their backs on me. It is very depressing to see the lack of interest shown in an art object which has no market value.

Today, I painted with blood.