“The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.”

I am a contradictory and paradoxical man.

The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.

If you understand your painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it.

My art is capable of liberating man from the tyranny of the practical, rational world.

The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.

So little of what could happen does happen.

There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.

I want to perceive and understand the hidden powers and laws of things, in order to have them in my power.

To be interesting, one has to provoke.

I’m going to live forever. Geniuses don’t die.

The terrifying and edible beauty of Art Nouveau architecture.

You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life

The fact I myself do not understand what my paintings mean while I am painting them does not imply that they are meaningless.

I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly.

I am the Don Quixote of unreality.

Do not strive to be a modern artist: it’s the one thing, unfortunately, you can’t help being.

I shouldn’t be saying this – high treason, really – but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren’t fooled by our accent into detecting brilliance that may not really be there.

It is the dialogue that lets the brilliance of the diamond’s infinite facets shine clearly. It is the dialogue that instills within us a power and capacity that is, and always has been, saturated with meaning.

What America demands in her black champions is a brilliant, powerful body and a dull, bestial mind.

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.

Simplicity is the key to brilliance.

We all have our moments of brilliance and glory.