From the evening breeze to this hand on my shoulder, everything has its truth.

I was comfortable in all, I admit, but at the same time, nothing satisfied me. Each joy made me seek another.

The work of art is born of the intelligence's refusal to reason the concrete. It marks the triumph of the carnal.

People don't love each other at our age, Marthe—they please each other, that's all. Later on, when you're old and impotent, you can love someone. At our age, you just think you do. That's all it is.

If the world were clear, art would not exist.

I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.

The first choice an artist makes is precisely to be an artist, and if he chooses to be an artist it is in consideration of what he is himself and because of a certain idea he has of art