The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.

Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.

All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.

For only that which we knew and practiced at age 15 will one day constitute our attraction. And one thing, therefore, can never be made good: having neglected to run away from home.

Painting, by its nature, cannot provide an object of simultaneous collective reception... as film is able to do today... And while efforts have been made to present paintings to the masses in galleries and salons, this mode of reception gives the masses no means of organizing and regulating their response. Thus, the same public which reacts progressively to a slapstick comedy inevitably displays a backward attitude toward Surrealism.

How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!

I am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.