Man Ray

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.

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.

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.

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