A Quote by Marcel Duchamp

The great problem was the selection of the readymade. I needed to choose an object without it impressing me: that is to say, without it providing any sort of aesthetic delectation. Moreover, I needed to reduce my own personal taste to absolute zero.
Just understand, don`t choose - don`t choose even choicelessness. Simply understand the whole situation: that whatsoever you choose, whatsoever you do, will come out of the calculating mind. It cannot be the real thing. Your mind can only produce dreams, it cannot produce the truth. Truth cannot be produced, nobody can produce it. It is there; it has to be seen. Nothing has to be done, just a look is needed - a look without any prejudice, a look without any choice, a look without any distinctions.
God took and needed no personal service. He served His creatures without demanding any service for Himself in return.
We couldn't get along without him. We needed Johnny as much as he needed the gang. And for the same reason.
So I went to Miami in '74 with my family and while I was there it became obvious that we needed money and we needed to do something, because my family, we left without anything really, and we didn't have any money to begin with.
This is the world of One Taste, with no inside and no outside, no subject and no object, no in here versus out there, without means, without path and without goal. And this, as Ramana said, is the final truth.
I was at that point where my children needed more than going around the planet in the back of a bus. They needed stability, they needed to build their own lives and relationships, and I needed to put my life on hold. I made my choice - I chose my children.
My Ready-Mades have nothing to do with the 'objet trouve' because the so-called 'found object' is completely directed by personal taste. Personal taste decides that this is a beautiful object and is unique.
I couldn't stand to be separated with my wife for months. It became quickly apparent to me that I needed to find a balance between my absolute work obsession and a private life that we could share without my disappearing all the time.
Every failure is a blessing in disguise, providing it teaches some needed lesson one could not have learned without it. Most so-called Failures are only temporary defeats.
A work of art is itself an object, first of all, and so manipulation is unavoidable: it's a prerequisite. But I needed the greater objectivity of the photograph in order to correct my own way of seeing: for instance, if I draw an object from nature, I start to stylize and to change it in accordance with my personal vision and my training. But if I paint from a photograph, I can forget all the criteria that I get from these sources. I can paint against my will, as it were. And that, to me, felt like an enrichment.
The mindset that is needed, the capabilities that are needed, the metrics that are needed, the whole culture that is needed for discontinuous innovation, are fundamentally different.
We needed time off from each other after our last tour because there was a lot of personal stuff we had to take care of. Eddie needed hip replacement surgery. Al needed his back worked on. And I was going to have a baby.
Freedom means the capability to say yes when yes is needed, to say no when no is needed, and sometimes to keep quiet when nothing is needed - to be silent, not to say anything. When all these dimensions are available, there is freedom.
He kissed her. Without warning, without permission. Without even deciding to do it, but simply because he couldn't have done anything else. He needed that breath she was holding. It belonged to him, and he wanted it back.
I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.
I wasn't intentionally trying to create my own path or be original, it was just I needed to say certain things and I needed to express myself, and that's how it came out.
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