When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.

The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.

The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.

Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.

Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.

Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak in the first act, would weep for joy in the second and in the last would fall backward down a flight of stairs.

There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard.