Man Ray Quotes

I never knew what I was doing until I was done.

I would photograph an idea rather than an object, a dream rather than an idea.

My works were designed to amuse, annoy, bewilder, mystify and inspire reflection.

A camera alone does not make a picture. To make a picture you need a camera, a photographer and above all a subject. It is the subject that determines the interest of the photograph.

When I saw I was under attack from all sides, I knew I was on the right track.

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.

Reality is fabricated out of desire.

I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.

To create is divine, to reproduce is human.

Nature does not create works of art. It is we, and the faculty of interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art.

You don’t ask a writer what typewriter he uses.

I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive.

I believe in the relation between photography and music; And thats my inspiration.

The streets are full of admirable craftsmen, but so few practical dreamers.

The tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow.

Each one of us, in his timidity, has a limit beyond which he is outraged. It is inevitable that he who by concentrated application has extended this limit for himself, should arouse the resentment of those who have accepted conventions which, since accepted by all, require no initiative of application. And this resentment generally takes the form of meaningless laughter or of criticism, if not persecution.

Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.

Lipstick is the red badge of courage.

I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence.

There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love.

Is photography an art? There is no point in trying to find out if it is an art. Art is old-fashioned. We need something else.

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

If I'd had the nerve, I'd have become a thief or a gangster, but since I didn't, I became a photographer.

All my life I have painted pictures so that certain people would drop dead when they looked at them, but I have not succeeded yet. The worst painting cant hurt you, but a bad driver can kill you, a bad judge can send you to the chair, a bad politician can ruin an entire country, That is why even a bad painting is sacred.