Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself.

The artist must know how far to go too far.

A picture is not a window...an abstract refers to no reality but its own.

Alas! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven. think it rather the result of a profound indolence.

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.

I'm not willing just to be tolerated. That wounds my love of love and of liberty.

In two weeks, despite these notes, I shall no longer believe in what I am experiencing now. One must leave behind a trace of this journey which memory forgets. One must, when this is impossible, write or draw without responding to the romantic solicitations of pain, without enjoying suffering like music, tieing a pen to one's foot if need be, helping the doctors who can learn nothing from laziness.