..the thing was to choose one [a ready-made object] that you were not attracted by.. ..and that was difficult because anything becomes beautiful if you look at it long enough.. .[My intention was to] completely eliminate the existence of taste, bad or good or indifferent.

I don't want to look at something that determines me so completely.

[I] purposely avoided the styles of Raphael and Michaelangelo because I was ambitious of higher distinction than that of a clever imitator.

I no longer wish to look at dead things.

My intentions were not to fascinate the world with my personality.

A point which I want very much to establish is that the choice of these 'Readymade' was never dictated by aesthetic delectation. This choice was based on a reaction of visual indifference with at the same time a total absence of good or bad taste.. ..in fact a complete anesthesia. One important characteristic was the short sentence which I occasionally inscribed on the 'readymade'. That sentence instead of describing the object like a title was meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal.

"If I were to draw, I would apply myself only to studying the form of inanimate objects," I said somewhat imperiously, because I wanted to change the subjects and also because a natural inclination does truly lead me to recognise my moods in the motionless suffering of things.

I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given, and solitude in which to unfold my possessions.

A people that have become insensate of all that is really beautiful, are likewise indifferent to the appeals of the idealist.

I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.

I wanted to make people think of a totally different way of living from that which we, educated people, live. I would absolutely not want anyone to find it beautiful or good without a thought.

To contemplate a thing implies maintaining oneself OUTSIDE it, resolved to keep a distance between it and ourselves.

I thought only of one thing, to account to myself for the laws of light and perspective. I did not attach any importance to what they found original, new and romantic in me, I sought the picture.

Perhaps the measure of the best art is that it does not excite envy.