"What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told."

"It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor."

"Art is the collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better."

"It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not."

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much."

"Life's pretty good, and why wouldn't it be? I'm a pirate, after all."

"I love Rauschenberg. I love that he created a turning point in visual history, that he redefined the idea of beauty, that he combined painting, sculpture, photography, and everyday life with such gall, and that he was interested in, as he put it, 'the ability to conceive failure as progress.'"

"The greatest deception is forgetting that authenticity is the rarest and most beautiful asset."