“All art is but dirtying the paper delicately.”

“I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind. ”

“Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper.”

“The art of not playing in tempo--one has to learn it. And the art of not playing what is written on the printed paper.”

“She was wearing the same clothes, but now she looked haggard and dirty. The delicate illusions that get us through life can only stand so much strain.”

“I cared nothing; my point of view in that instance, as in all others like it, was, that if the paper chose to send an outsider and an ignoramus to criticise works of art - especially the works of a new and tentative and experimental school - then, on the head of the paper let the just doom fall.”