A couple of years ago, leaving a restaurant near the Louvre, I held the door for a black man in a camel overcoat. Only as he passed did I realize it was the rapper Kanye West.

Thomas Chatterton Williams

I've been fifty thousand times to the Louvre. I have copied everything in drawing, trying to understand.

Alberto Giacometti

I like the Hotel Costes, on rue Saint Honore, a boutique hotel near the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and the Tuileries. I love the dark, moody decor as well as the fantastic scented, candlelit pool in the basement.

Alice Temperley

I went to the Louvre in Paris, and I saw all the paintings and the Mona Lisa. You don't really see something like that every day. I was looking at it, and everything else in the room just shut out. Like, Leonardo Da Vinci painted this thing - this is unreal that he touched that. It had this crazy effect on me.

Brian Fallon

At 18, I stood in the Louvre in front of the paintings that TV had first shown me.

David Olusoga

Museums do not share their collections with other museums unless they get something in exchange. The Metropolitan will deal with the Louvre, but will they send their stuff to Memphis? No.

Eli Broad

We had a lot of difficulty in getting the French to accept the pyramid. They thought we were trying to import a piece of Egypt until I pointed out that their obelisk was also from Egypt and the Place des Pyramides is around the corner. Then they accepted it. The pyramid at the Louvre, though, is just the tip.

I. M. Pei

The Louvre for me is a wonderful experience. Because it continues; it didn't get cut off. It was actually a continuous involvement all the way, and a lot of people have come and gone, come and gone; but I'm still here.

I. M. Pei

I'd been going to the Louvre since 1951. I thought I knew Paris and the French, but I didn't really. You know how easy it is to make friends when you are traveling. People are curious about you, you are curious about them. But you never really make friends that way. After the Louvre, I discovered that I have friends now because I have enemies.

I. M. Pei

I could never imagine ever in my life that I'd be on the side of The Louvre.

Jain

It's amazing how you meet people through other people. I knew a racecar driver, Stefan Johansson, who was very hot. He introduced me to Jean Todt. He introduced me to a French doctor. He introduced me to a French architect who redid the Louvre with I.M. Pei. He introduced me to Daniel Boulud.

James Rosenquist

The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.

Jean Cocteau

I remember being a student, and I would go every Friday to the Louvre and stay for ages, just walking around.

Jemima West

I never expected the White House to be warm, and the artwork on the walls was extraordinary. I am a fan of the Louvre, but being there it was almost just as good.

Jill Scott

There is no reason why the Louvre should be your favourite gallery just because it has the grandest collections in France, any more than Kew should necessarily be a favourite garden because it has the largest assemblage of plants, or Tesco your chosen shop because it has the widest variety of canned beans.

Jim Crace

You don't want to pitch a tent and live inside the Louvre. You want to check it out, appreciate it, and move somewhere else.

John Oates

Then finally I said, 'Okay, well, I want to know all the details. I want creative input. I want to be consulted. I want to know what they're doing and who's involved. And I want to see the space.' So they took me to see it, and then I realized it was major! All these red flags on the Rue de Rivoli with my name on them right by the Louvre!

Kate Moss

There's a McDonald's in the Louvre.

Lee Radziwill

I haven't been in the Louvre for twenty years. It doesn't interest me because I have these doubts about the value of the judgments which decided that all these pictures should be presented to the Louvre instead of others which weren't even considered.

Marcel Duchamp

The Louvre stopped buying paintings in 1848, and neither the Metropolitan nor the Hermitage acquire contemporary material.

Neil MacGregor

Keep good company - that is, go to the Louvre.

Paul Cezanne