"Now, if you have been up to my place, you will have seen, in the studio, a 'Bicycle Wheel' and a 'Bottle Rack'. – I bought this as a ready-made sculpture . And I h have a plan concerning this so-called bottle rack. Listen to this. Here in N.Y., I have bought various objects in the same taste and I treat them as 'ready-mades'. You know enough English to understand the meaning of 'ready-made' that I give these objects. – I sign them and think of an inscription for them in English. I'll give you a few examples. I have, for example, a large snow shovel on which I have inscribed at the bottom: In advance of the broken arm, French translation: 'En avance dus bras cassé' – trying to understand this in the Romantic or impressionist or Cubist sense – it has nothing to do with all that. Another 'readymade' is called: Emergency in favour of twice possible French translation: Danger \Crise \en favour de 2 fois. This long preamble just to say: Take this bottle rack for yourself. I'm making it a 'readymade' remotely. You are to inscribe it at the bottom and on the inside of the bottom circle, in small letters painted with a brush in oil, silver white colour, with an inscription which I will give you herewith, and then sign it, in the same handwriting, as follows: Marcel Duchamp."

“the beginning of a cult devoted to the material on the canvas – the actual pigment..”

“Well, this man wanted to know why I stopped painting .. ..and he had said because of dealers and money and various reasons. Largely moralistic reasons.. ..But you know; it wasn’t like that. It’s like you break a leg; you don't mean to do it.”

“Another important point which you so very accurately sensed concerns the idea that the glass in actual fact is not meant to be looked at . It should be accompanied by a 'literary' text, as amorphous as possible, which never took shape. And the two elements, glass for the eyes, text for the ears and understanding, should complement each other and above all prevent one or the other from taking on an aesthetic-plastic or literary form. All in all, I am hugely indebted to you for having stripped bare my Bride stripped bare .”

“Painting is over and done with. Who could do anything better than this propeller? Look, could you do that?”

“I wanted to get away from the physical act of painting.. .For me the title , with inscription under: 'Fresh Widow Copyright Rose Sélavy, 1920', was very important.. .I was interested in ideas – not merely visual products. I wanted to put painting once again at the service of the mind.”

“..we must remember that this 'art coefficient' is a personal expression of art 'à l'état brute', that is, still in a raw state, which must be 'refined' as pure sugar from molasses, by the spectator; the digit of this coefficient has no bearing whatsoever on his verdict.. ..the role of the spectator is to determine the weight of the work on the aesthetic scale.”