Quotes by Marcel Duchamp

“I like living, breathing better than working...my art is that of living. Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral, it's a sort of constant...”

“All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy one...”

“I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.”

“I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.”

“The individual, man as a man, man as a brain, if you like, interests me more than what he makes, because I've noticed that most artists only repeat themselves. ”

“Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it.”

“To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.”

“Possible reality [is obtained] by slightly bending physical and chemical laws.”

“All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone.. the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thu...”

“As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn goodI use it because I have to, but I dont put any trust in it. We never unders...”

“One is a painter because one wants so-called freedom one doesn't want to go to the office every morning.”

“Rational intelligence is dangerous and leads to ratiocination. The painter is a medium who doesn't realize what he is doing. No translation can express the mystery of sensibility, a word, still unr...”

“Tradition is the great misleader because it's too easy to follow what has already been done - even though you may think you're giving it a kick. I was really trying to invent, instead of merely exp...”

“I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.”

“What art is, in reality, is this missing link, not the links which exist. It's not what you see that is art; art is the gap.”

“The word 'art' interests me very much. If it comes from Sanskrit, as I've heard, it signifies 'making.' Now everyone makes something, and those who make things on a canvas with a frame, they're cal...”

“I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.”

“It's not what you see that is art art is the gap.”

“Dada was an extreme protest against the physical side of painting. It was a metaphysical attitude.”

“I became a librarian at the Sainte-Genevieve Library in Paris. I made this gesture to rid myself of a certain milieu, a certain attitude, to have a clean conscience, but also to make a living. I wa...”