As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good—I use it because I have to, but I don’t put any trust in it. We never understand each other. - Marcel Duchamp
The individual, man as a man, man as a brain, if you like, interests me more than what he makes, because I've noticed that most artists only repeat themselves. - Marcel Duchamp
Possible reality [is obtained] by slightly bending physical and chemical laws. - Marcel Duchamp
All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone.. the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. - Marcel Duchamp
To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing. - Marcel Duchamp
I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste. - Marcel Duchamp
I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste. - Marcel Duchamp
Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it. - Marcel Duchamp
All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess. - Marcel Duchamp
I don't believe in art. I believe in artists. - Marcel Duchamp
I like living, breathing better than working...my art is that of living. Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral, it's a sort of constant euphoria. - Marcel Duchamp
The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. - Marcel Duchamp