"[Man Ray was] a kind of short man who looked a little like Mister Peepers, spoke slowly with a slight Brooklynese accent, and talked so you could never tell when he was kidding."

"Man Ray is a youthful alchemist forever in quest of the painter's philosopher's stone. May he never find it, as that would bring an end to his experimentations which are the very condition of living art expression."

"Man Ray, n.m. synon. de Joie jouer jouir. (Translation: "Man Ray, masculine noun, synonymous with joy, to play, to enjoy.")"

"With him you could try anything—there was nothing you were told not to do, except spill the chemicals. With Man Ray, you were free to do what your imagination conjured, and that kind of encouragement was wonderful."

"It's a Man Ray kind of sky, Let me show you what I can do with it."

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

"You see, I try to walk the tightrope of accomplishment between the chasms of notoriety and oblivion."

"I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions. Quoted in PBS episode of American Masters"

"unconcerned but not indifferent"

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

"l paint what cannot be photographed, and l photograph what l do not wish to paint. lf it is a portrait that interests me, a face, or a nude, I will use my camera. It is quicker than making a drawing or a painting. But if it is something I cannot photograph, like a dream or a subconscious impulse I have to resort to drawing or painting. To express what I feel I use the medium best suited to express that idea, which is also always the most economical one. l am not at all interested in being consistent as a painter, and object-maker or a photographer. I can use several different techniques, like the old masters who were engineers, musicians and poets at the same time. I have never shared the contempt shown by painters for photography: there is no competition involved, painting and photography are two media engaged in different paths. There is no conflict between the two."

"An original is a creation motivated by desire. Any reproduction of an original is motivated by necessity. The original is the result of an automatic process, the reproduction, of a mechanical process. In other words: Inspiration then information; each validates the other. All other considerations are beyond the scope of these statements. It is marvelous that we are the only species that creates gratuitous forms. To create is divine, to reproduce is human."

"All critics should be assassinated."

"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."

"A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him."

"There is … your high bridge in Pasadena from which every once in a while someone jumps off, committing suicide. There is no question of removing the bridge. Poems have been written by well-known authors that are supposed to have driven love-sick young people to suicide. These works are not banned. Thousands lose their lives in automobile accidents, yet nothing is done to restrain manufacturers from building lethal instruments that can do more than 30 miles an hour. To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society. An unskilled cook or doctor can put our lives in danger. l have tried … to paint a picture that would, like the beautiful head of Medusa, turn the spectator to stone … so that certain ones who looked at it would drop dead … but l have not yet succeeded!"

"There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love. There are simply different ways of doing it."

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

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

"I have finally freed myself from the sticky medium of paint, and am working directly with light itself."

"There, but for the grace of God, goes God."

"Helmsley would lick the dog, tongue to tongue. It was unhealthy, unnatural."

"Leona Helmsley is a truly evil human being. She treated employees worse than any human being I've ever witnessed and I've dealt with some of the toughest human beings alive."

"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

"I don't know how it is that you start working at something you don't like, and before you know it you're an old man."

"Never care what anybody says."

"Will you accept three hundred dollars per week to work for Paramount? All Expenses paid. The Three Hundred is Peanuts, millions are to be grabbed out here and your only comepetition is idiots. Don't let this get around."

"I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm not saying it's a great idea. I just want to talk about this...I'm not going to pocket it; we're going to talk about it."

"Andrew Saul is John Hall in a business suit. He's wrong on the war, on national security, immigration, abortion. He's Sue Kelly all over again."

"Mindfulness is defined as nonjudgmental, investigative, kind, and responsive awareness. This sort of awareness takes intentional training of the mind."

"Those who understand the way it is, rather than the way they wish it were, are on the path to freedom."

"Everything is impermanent—every pleasure, every pain, every body. But the survival instincts crave permanence and control. The body wants pleasure to stay forever and pain to go away forever."

"Recovery is also the ability to inhabit the conditions of the present reality, whether pleasant or unpleasant."

"We would all say that deep down, all we want is to be happy. Yet we don’t have a realistic understanding of what happiness really is. Happiness is closer to the experience of acceptance and contentment than it is to pleasure."

"We could search the whole world and never find another being more worthy of our love than ourselves."

"We must do away with any shred of denial, minimization, justification, or rationalization. To recover, we must completely and totally understand and accept the truth that addiction creates suffering."

"Difficult personalities are a mirror for the places where we get stuck in judgment, fear, and confusion."

"The cause of our suffering has always been our reaction to the thoughts, feelings, cravings, and circumstances of our lives. The cause of our addictions has always been the indulgence in the behaviors or substances."

"As we walk the path of Refuge Recovery, we gradually uncover a loving heart."

"If our definition of happiness is "experiencing that which is pleasurable," we are going to be disappointed a lot of the time."

"The next step in the process of liberation is to break this chain reaction of suffering whenever life is unpleasant and feeling content only when life is pleasurable."

"Forgiveness is not just a selfish pursuit of personal satisfaction or righteousness. It actually alleviates the amount of suffering in the world. As each one of us frees ourselves from clinging to resentments that cause suffering, we relieve our friends, family, and community of the burden of our unhappiness. This is not a philosophical proposal; it is a verifiable and practical truth. Through our suffering and lack of forgiveness, we tend to do all kinds of unskillful things that hurt others. We close ourselves off from love, for example, out of fear of further pains or betrayals. This alone—a lack of openness to the love shown to us—is a way that we cause harm to our loved ones. The closed heart lets no one in or out."

"Sitting still is a pain in the ass."

"Experience each moment as if it were the first sensation of its kind ever. Bring childlike interest and curiosity to your present-time experience."

"The most important thing to remember is that we must live in the present, and if in the present moment we are still holding on to old wounds and betrayals, it is in this moment that forgiveness is called for."

"The Dalai Lama is rumored to have said that being able to have sex without any attachment would take the level of attainment of being able to eat either chocolate cake or dog shit without any preference between the two."

"With mindfulness we have the choice of responding with compassion to the pain of craving, anger, fear and confusion. Without mindfulness we are stuck in the reactive pattern and identification that will inevitably create more suffering and confusion."

"Renunciation is not about pushing something away, it is about letting go. It's facing the fact that certain things cause us pain, and they cause other people pain. Renunciation is a commitment to let go of things that create suffering. It is the intention to stop hurting ourselves and others."

"Spiritual revolutionaries must be committed not to what is easiest, but to what is most beneficial to themselves and the world."

"The greatest satisfaction comes not from chasing pleasure and avoiding pain, but from the radical acceptance of life as it is, without fighting and clinging to passing desires."