“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”

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.

Don’t bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid.

I don’t smoke, I decided to grow a mustache – it is better for the health.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

Knowing how to look is a way of inventing.

It’s better to have loved and lost than do forty pounds of laundry a week.

I need to remind myself all the time that being afraid of things going wrong, is not the way to make things right. All fear has ever done is try destroy any existing hope I have.

Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.

The greatest opportunities in life come with fear and risk.

I’ve spent a lot of time holding onto things and people that brought me misery because I was afraid of the void that may be there once I let go. I know now my voids were just as illusionary as the fear and insecurities that created them.

In fact, truth cannot be communicated until it is perceived.

First our pleasures die – and then our hopes, and then our fears – and when these are dead, the debt is due dust claims dust – and we die too.

I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!

I don’t fear anyone. I just concentrate on giving my best.