One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.

Since man's highest mission on earth is to spiritualize everything, it is his excrement in particular that needs it most.

Knowing how to look is a way of inventing.

It is mostly with your blood, Gala that I paint my pictures

I was never capable of being an average pupil. I would either seem refractory to any teaching and give the impression of being completely dumb or I would fling myself on my work with a frenzy, a patience, and a willingness to learn that astonished everybody. But to awaken my zeal, it was necessary to offer me something I liked. Once my appetite had been whetted, I became ravenously hungry.

Photographic data... is still and ESSENTIALLY THE SAFEST POETIC MEDIUM and the most agile process for catching the most delicate osmoses which exist between reality and surreality. The mere fact of photographic transposition means a total invention: the capture of a secret reality.

Everything that is contradictory creates life