193 Quotes by Marcel Duchamp

It’s true, of course, humor is very important in my life, as you know. That’s the only reason for living, in fact.

In my day artists wanted to be outcasts, pariahs. Now they are all integrated into society.

I was highly attracted to chess for forty or forty-five years; then, little by little, my enthusiasm lessened.

Words such as truth, art, veracity, or anything are stupid in themselves.

Painter after painter, since the beginning of the century, has tended toward abstraction. First, the Impressionists simplified the landscape in terms of color, and then the Fauves simplified it again by adding distortion, which, for some reason, is a characteristic of our century.

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.

I am afraid to end up being in need to sell canvases - in other words, to be a society painter.

I like living, breathing better than working... Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral. It's a kind of constant euphoria.

It is curious to note how fragile the memory is, even for the important times in one's life. This is, moreover, what explains the fortunate fantasy of history.