The creative person wears a mask... just like a sculptor wears an apron."

If the artist only reproduces superficial features as photography does, if he copies the lineaments of a face exactly, without reference to character, he deserves no admiration. The resemblance which he ought to obtain is that of the soul; that alone matters; it is that which the sculptor or painter should seek beneath the mask of features.

The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself

The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols.

The artist is obliged to invent the self who will paint his pictures.

An artist must find his expression closely linked to his individual experience or else follow in the old grooves resulting in lifeless forms.

The most important tool the artist fashions through constant practice is the faith in his ability to produce miracles when they are needed. Pictures must be miraculous; the instant one is completed, the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended. He is an outsider. The picture must be for him, as for anyone experiencing it later, a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need.

An artist must be man, woman and demi-god.

The artist, and more especially he who uses a camera, must enedeavor to be, not a mere recorder of external facts, but one who forms a vivid mental impression and tries to make us realize his impression.

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.

An artist's creation is an extension of themselves, thus their artworks mirror their inner workings, desires and fears. When someone commits money to buy art, it is an indication, that they were moved by an aspect of the work.

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.

An artist is someone who carries his center within himself. Whoever lacks such a center has to choose some particular leader and mediator outside of himself.

The artist is the only one who detaches himself from life, opposes his personality against it, he is the only one who orders things as he wishes them to be in place of things as they are. Thus for him life is not a fait accompli, it is something to remake, to do again. He takes possession of his gifts in order to continue, to change, He makes his choice, it is he who creates the conceptions of beautiful and ugly, those are the things to preserve, the things to change. At the seat of the things that it is necessary to change he puts his desires, his aspirations, in one word, his personality...