In art, we are the first heirs of all the earth. . . . Accidents impair and Time transforms, but it is we who choose.

The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our own nothingness.

Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.

The basic problem is that our civilization, which is a civilization of machines, can teach man everything except how to be a man.

There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman.

The thrill of creation which we experience which we experience when we see a masterpiece is not unlike the feeling of the artist who created it; such a work is a fragment of the world which he has annexed and which belongs to him alone.

The terrible thing about death is that it transforms life into destiny.