When I speak of the aspiration towards the beautiful, of the ideal as the ultimate aim of art, which grows from a yearning for that ideal, I am not for a moment suggesting that art should shun the 'dirt' of the world. On the contrary! the artistic image is always a metonym, where one thing is substituted for another, the smaller for the greater. To tell of what is living, the artist uses something dead; to speak of the infinite, he shows the finite. Substitution... the infinite cannot be made into matter, but it is possible to create an illusion of the infinite: the image.

If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens.

An artist needs knowledge and the power of observation only so that he can tell from what he is abstaining, and to be sure that his abstention will not appear artificial or false.

Of course life has no point. If it had, man would not be free.

We have forgotten to observe. Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns.

The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.

An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty.