I thought to discourage aesthetics... I threw the…

One is a painter because one wants so-called freedom; one doesn't want to go to the office every morning.

— Marcel Duchamp

Humor is the only reason to live.

— Marcel Duchamp

Society takes what it wants. The artist himself does not count, because there is no actual existence for the work of art. The work…

— 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…

— Marcel Duchamp

I believe that the artist doesn't know what he does. I attach even more importance to the spectator than to the artist.

— Marcel Duchamp

Living is more a question of what one spends than what one makes.

— Marcel Duchamp

Rational intelligence is dangerous and leads to ratiocination. The painter is a medium who doesn't realize what he is doing. No translation can express…

— Marcel Duchamp

Everything important that I have done can be put into a little suitcase.

— Marcel Duchamp

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…

— Marcel Duchamp

The basis for my own work during the years just before coming to America in 1915 was a desire to break up forms -…

— Marcel Duchamp

The curious thing about that moustache and goatee is that when you look at the Mona Lisa it becomes a man. It is not…

— Marcel Duchamp

I am afraid to end up being in need to sell canvases - in other words, to be a society painter.

— Marcel Duchamp

In the midst of each epoch, I fully realize that a new epoch will dawn.

— 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…

— Marcel Duchamp

Words such as truth, art, veracity, or anything are stupid in themselves.

— Marcel Duchamp