Man Ray Quotations

A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him.

I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive.

It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them.

Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how', while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why'. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

An original is a creation motivated by desire. Any reproduction of an originals motivated be necessity. It is marvelous that we are the only species that creates gratuitous forms. To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.

One of the satisfactions of a genius is his will-power and obstinacy.

Don't put my name on it. These are simply documents I make.

To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.

Cher Tzara. Dada cannot live in New York. All New York is dada, and will not tolerate a rival.

An original is a creation motivated by desire.

A certain amount of contempt for the material employed to express an idea is indispensable to the purest realization of this idea.

An effort impelled by desire must also have an automatic or subconscious energy to aid its realization.

I have never painted a recent picture.

Quote me as much as you like; as a matter of fact I don’t even mind if you misquote me !

I photograph what I do not wish to paint, and I paint what I do not wish to photograph

Thanks to my effort in the last 40 years, there has been more paper and film wasted.

I never knew what I was doing until I was done.

In the same spirit, when the automobile arrived, there were those that declared the horse to be the most perfect form of locomotion.

The tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow.

I paint when I cannot photograph.

I am not going to be dictated to by the size of the camera. I use everything from an 8 x 10 to a 35-mm. But I don't use these modern cameras which break down all the time !

I am an economic person; I judge the amount of work involved with the amount of worth attained.

All my life I have painted pictures so that certain people would drop dead when they looked at them, but I have not succeeded yet. The worst painting cant hurt you, but a bad driver can kill you, a bad judge can send you to the chair, a bad politician can ruin an entire country, That is why even a bad painting is sacred.

Speaking of nudes, I have always had a great fondness for this subject, both in my paintings and in my photos, and I must admit, not for purely artistic reasons.

Is photography an art? There is no point in trying to find out if it is an art. Art is old-fashioned. We need something else.

The complicated engines manufactured by men demand, if one really wants to use them, much calm. Ever since our love for machines replaced the love we used to have for our fellow man, catastrophes proceed to increase.

I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society.

Lipstick is the red badge of courage.

If the affairs of the world were put in the hands of the screwball artists, it couldn’t be in a worse state than it is now !

Just as I work with paints, brushes, and canvas, I work with the light, pieces of glass and chemistry.

I paint what cannot be photographed, something from the imagination... I photograph the things I don't want to paint, things that are already in existence.

Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow.

All critics should be assassinated.

Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

Reality is fabricated out of desire.

If I'd had the nerve, I'd have become a thief or a gangster, but since I didn't, I became a photographer.

I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.

You don’t ask a writer what typewriter he uses.

I believe in the relation between photography and music; And thats my inspiration.

There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love.

I have been accused of being a joker. But the most successful art to me involves humor.

The streets are full of admirable craftsmen, but so few practical dreamers.

Oh, yes, I was a great retoucher. A retoucher is an esthetic surgeon !

Dada cannot live in New York. All New York is dada, and will not tolerate a rival.

Each one of us, in his timidity, has a limit beyond which he is outraged. It is inevitable that he who by concentrated application has extended this limit for himself, should arouse the resentment of those who have accepted conventions which, since accepted by all, require no initiative of application. And this resentment generally takes the form of meaningless laughter or of criticism, if not persecution.

To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

My works were designed to amuse, annoy, bewilder, mystify and inspire reflection.

Nature does not create works of art. It is we, and the faculty of interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art.

When I saw I was under attack from all sides, I knew I was on the right track.

A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph.

I would photograph an idea rather than an object, a dream rather than an idea.