Man Ray

“I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature.”

“There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love. There are simply different ways of doing it.”

“A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him.”

“I would photograph an idea rather than an object, and a dream rather than an idea.”

“All critics should be assassinated.”

“To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.”

“If the subject is not important, the style is.”

“I paint what cannot be photographed, and I photograph what I do not wish to paint.”

“To create is divine, to reproduce is human.”

“Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how', while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why'.”

“I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.”

“An original is a creation motivated by desire. Any reproduction of an original is motivated by necessity.”

“I have been accused of being a joker. But the most successful art to me involves humor.”

“It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them.”

“Nature does not create works of art. It is we, and the faculty of interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art.”

“You don't ask a writer what typewriter he uses.”

“I don't invent anything. I rediscover.”

“I have finally freed myself from the sticky medium of paint, and am working directly with light itself.”

“The streets are full of admirable craftsmen, but so few practical dreamers.”

“When I saw I was under attack from all sides, I knew I was on the right track.”