Jean Dubuffet Quotes

Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?

In portraits, the grace and, we may add, the likeness consists more in taking the general air than in observing the exact similitude of every feature.

That which exists in nature is a something purely individual and particular. Art, on the contrary, is essentially destined to manifest the general.

This fascination with the human face has never left me... Every face I see seems to hide and sometimes, fleetingly, to reveal the mystery of another human being... Capturing this revelation became the goal and passion of my life.

You can listen to 'Cosmic' and truly get to know me, which I think is special.

I want to show people what I'm about - not just, 'Here's my celebrity partner this year that I'm going to showcase.'

I would not trade any of these features for anybody else’s. I wouldn’t trade the small thin-lipped mouth that makes me resemble my nephew. I wouldn’t even trade the acne scar on my right cheek, because that recurring zit spent more time with me in college than any boy ever did.

The curious thing about individuals is that their singularity always goes beyond any category or generalization in the book.

I had this great teacher, Milton Katselas, who was this loud Greek who had directed Bette Davis and Liv Ullmann, and brought Edward Albee to this country. He said, "Why do you keep trying to be a Rolex watch when you're the salt of the earth?" Except he said it much louder.

This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am.

It is for the artist... in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.

It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind.

The reason some portraits don't look true to life is that some people make no effort to resemble their pictures.

The woman's personal identity is a vast undiscovered country -- with which Society has yet to acquaint itself, and by which it is yet to be revolutionized.

I’ve often been told that I’m a bit strange. I hear that pretty regularly, but it is not how I see myself. I feel like I’m extremely normal. I do have a bizarre face that’s a bit out of proportion. I guess that’s why some people see me as strange.

Tomorrow you may bring about the destruction of your world. Tomorrow you may sing in Paradise above the smoking ruins of your world-cities. But tonight I would like to think of one man, a lone individual, a man without name or country, a man whom I respect because he has absolutely nothing in common with you - MYSELF. Tonight I shall meditate upon that which I am.

Freedom and diversity guard each other, and if a country could form the whole of one's character, Napoleon III and Victor Hugo would have been the same person... if national identity means anything, it means something that comes with you wherever you go, and stays with you no matter how long you stay away.

It's much more interesting to embrace who you really are rather than waste energy pretending to be someone else.

Music is a reflection of who you are, and if those things that you mentioned are what your music is all about, then I guess that's who you are.

I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me.

If, at some future point, my face collapses around my eyes, I'd probably do something about it. My eyes are where I live, and if people couldn't see them, no one would know me.

What makes me myself rather than anyone else is the very fact that I am poised between two countries, two or three languages, and several cultural traditions. It is precisely this that defines my identity. Would I exist more authentically if I cut off a part of myself

It's the fact that you can reduce my whole life to one word, whatever it is, my entire career, my service to my country, my academic rigor, my courage in going to interview terrorists, and refugee camps, and third-world prisons.

Every artist's strictly illimitable country is himself. An artist who plays that country false has committed suicide; and even a good lawyer cannot kill the dead. But a human being who's true to himself - whoever himself may be - is immortal; and all the atomic bombs of all the antiartists in spacetime will never civilize immortality.