The term "problem", which Magritte systematically used from then on... From one "problem" to another the dialectical couples structuring Magritte's imagination become clear: natural and artificial, interior and exterior, the impulsive and the rational. (p18)

"The changing content of poetic images [...] does not appear at will, it does not obey a logical or illogical, strict or fanciful system. "

The "mystery" is both the crucible and agent of "visual thought" : "Painted images which evoke mystery assert the beauty of that which is neither meaning nor non-meaning. "

"Poetic thought" is one of the possible synonyms of "mystery" as Magritte conceives it. (p22)

In any case, the Surrealists know how to be free, "Freedom, the colour of man", as André Breton proclaims. (p28)

The result of a systematic search for a disturbing poetic effect through the arrangement of objects borrowed an overwhelming poetic meaning by a natural process of exchange. (p32)

Whereas previously this shock had been caused by the encounter of objects foreign to one another.

During the course of my searching I became certain that I always knew in advance that element to be discovered, that one and only thing obscurely linked to each object, but that knowledge lay buried in the back of my mind.

Since these searches could give only a single right answer for each object, my investigations were like the pursuit of solutions to problem for which I had three particulars: the object, the thing attached to it in the depths of my mind, and the light into which that thing had to be brought. (p33)

 

His curtains, words, flames, shadows, fragments and collages refer to legends and allegories that all question the status of images and their relationship to reality and truth. (p53)

 

When one correlates the artist's principles and pictorial creations, one realises furthermore that the operational effectiveness in art is no guarantee of the theoretical interest of a principle and vice versa. A principle at work in a remarkable painting can seem very dull when spelled out in words and a rather original maxim can correspond to more unimaginative picture. (p57

 

Each thing has "an element peculiar and rigorously predestined to it", and bringing them together has a formidable effect. (p61)

 

"through the arrangement of objects borrowed from reality " his painting must give "the real world from which those objects have been borrowed an overwhelming poetic meaning by a natural process of exchange".  (p62)