Things are not difficult to make what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them

The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible.

I refused [to study under Rodin] because nothing grows under large trees.

Why talk about sculpture when I can photograph it?

To see far is one thing, going there is another.

Simplicity is not an objective in art, but one achieves simplicity despite one's self by entering into the real sense of things.

When you see a fish you don't think of its scales, do you? You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through the water... If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement, give a pattern or shape of reality. I want just the flash of its spirit.

Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave.

Whoever does not detach himself from the ego never attains the Absolute and never deciphers life.

Don't look for obscure formulas or mystery in my work. It is pure joy that I offer you. Look at my sculptures until you see them. Those closest to God have seen them.

Nothing grows well in the shade of a big tree.

Simplicity is complexity resolved

The work of art expresses precisely those things which do not die. It must do so, however, in a form that bears witness to the artist's own era.