Quotes from Man Ray

I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.

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

All critics should be assassinated.

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

Reality is fabricated out of desire.

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.

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

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 !

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

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.

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.

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

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

A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him.

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

Lipstick is the red badge of courage.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.