The differences between revolution in art and revolution in politics are enormous. Revolution in art lies not in the will to destroy but in the revelation of what has already been destroyed. Art kills only the dead.

Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it. Advanced art today is no longer a cause -it contains no moral imperative. There is no virtue in clinging to principles and standards, no vice in selling or in selling out.

Today, each artist must undertake to invent himself, a lifelong act of creation that constitutes the essential content of the artist's work.

America is the civilization of people engaged in transforming themselves. In the past, the stars of the performance were the pioneer and the immigrant. Today, it is youth and the Black.

An artist is a person who has invented an artist.

Avant-gardism is an addiction that can be appeased only by a revolution in permanence.

The purpose of education is to keep a culture from being drowned in senseless repetitions, each of which claims to offer a new insight.