“Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you.”

This grandiose tragedy that we call modern art.

If I’m going to be anything more than average, if anyone is going to remember me, then I need to go further, in art, in life, in everything!

An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and has no hair under her arms.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

Repulsion is the sentry that guards the gate to all that we most desire.

Physiological expenditure is a superficial way of self-expression. People who incline toward physical love accomplish nothing at all.

The mere fact of photographic transposition means a total invention: the capture of a secret reality.

Anything that does not take place erotically sublimates itself in the work of art.

When we are asleep in this world, we are awake in another.

Liking money like I like it, is nothing less than mysticism. Money is a glory.

Freedom of any kind is the worst for creativity.

Do not be afraid of perfection – you will never attain it.

Genius has to pass over madness and madness over genius.

The reason some portraits don’t look true to life is that some people make no effort to resemble their pictures.

Everything that is contradictory creates life.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.

A well begun is half ended.

I don’t think that when Zionism began there was a claim that we were losing – even in part – our capacity to contribute to other peoples.

The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.

We broke through the feminine mystique and women who were wives, mothers and housewives began to find themselves as people. That didn’t mean they stopped, or had to stop, being mothers, wives or even liking their homes.

Let’s begin creating miracles now.

The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.

The moment we begin to celebrate ourselves and focus on our successes is the moment we begin living.