Top 130 Quotes & Sayings by Banksy - Page 2

The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.

Should #? graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It's way more important than that

The human race is the most stupid and unfair kind of race. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some runners are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising a lot of people have given up compeating altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk and shout abuse. What the human race needs is a lot more streakers.

A recent survey or North American males found 42% were overweight, 34% were critically obese and 8% ate the survey.

People are fond of using military terms to describe what they do. We call it bombing when we go out painting, when of course it's more like entertaining the troops in a neutral zone, during peacetime in a country without an army.

People seem to think if they dress like a revolutionary they don`t actually have to behave like one.

Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.

You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.

Anyone who believes in capital punishment should be shot

T.V. has made going to the theatre seem pointless, photography has pretty much killed painting but graffiti has remained gloriously unspoilt by progress.

Brandalism Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

People who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine.

People either love me or they hate me, or they don't really care.

Stencils are good for two reasons; one - they're quick; two - they annoy idiots.

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they're having a piss.

I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore.

Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can't even finish my second apple pie.

If you feel dirty, insignificant or unloved, then rats are a good role model. They exist without permission, they have no respect for the hierarchy of society, and they have sex 50 times a day.

Graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.

Once upon a time there was a bear and a bee who lived in a wood and were the best of friends. All summer long the bee collected nectar from morning to night while the bear lay on his back basking in the long grass. When winter came the bear realised he had nothing to eat and thought to himself 'I hope that busy little bee will share some of his honey with me.' But the bee was nowhere to be found - he had died of a stress induced coronary disease.

Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.

We don’t need any more heroes; we just need someone to take out the recycling.

If at first you don't succeed, Call an airstrike.

Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually one of the more honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission.

Today's art has been cancelled due to police activity.

If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you've made your own sculpture.

I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.

Fight the fighters, not their wars.

I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There's no gallery show or book or film. It's pointless. Which hopefully means something.

If you are dirty, insignificant and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model.

The difference between freedom and slavery is one thin line

Policemen and security guards wear hats with a peak that comes down low over their eyes. Apparently this is for psychological reasons. Eyebrows are very expressive and you appear a lot more authoritative if you keep them covered up. The advantage of this is that it makes a lot harder for cops to see anything more than six foot off the ground. Which is why painting rooftops and bridges is so easy.

I used to tell everyone I met to be an artist..... I don't do that any more.

Gaza is often described as 'the world's largest open air prison' because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons - they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day.

If you don't own a train company then you go and paint on one instead... it all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something... that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it.

I wouldnt want to be remembered as the guy who contaminated a perfectly legitimate form of protest art with money and celebrities.

I tell myself I use art to promote dissent, but maybe I am just using dissent to promote my art. I plead not guilty to selling out. But I plead it from a bigger house than I used to live in.

I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom.

It's a very frustrated feeling you get when the only people with good photos of you work are the police department.

I have no interest in ever coming out. I’m just trying to make the pictures look good; I’m not into trying to make myself look good. And besides, it’s a pretty safe bet that the reality of me would be a crushing disappointment to a couple of 15-year-old kids out there.

At this time of year it's easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity - the lies, the corruption, the abuse.

Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice.

The one thing you can rely on is if you get disturbed halfway through a painting and it looks a bit naff, then someone will preserve that piece, remove it and a few months later it'll be paraded round Sotheby's by people wearing white gloves.

I've never really understood why people sleep. Wasting a third of your life and becoming vulnerable for almost 8 hours every night. Doesn't seem very appealing to me.

Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.

Some people criticize me for using sources that are a bit low brow (this quote is from 'Gladiator') but you know what? 'I'm just going to use that hostility to make me stronger, not weaker' as Kelly Rowland said on the X Factor.

Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it's probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.

If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel.

I'd been painting rats for three years before someone said 'that's clever it's an anagram of art' and I had to pretend I'd known that all along.

When he time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don't make any fuss.

My lawyer's opinion is that the cops might not actually be able to charge me with criminal damage any more - because theoretically my graffiti actually increases the value of property rather than decreasing it. That's his theory, but then my lawyer also believes wearing novelty cartoon ties is a good look.

You're advised not to drink the replica Arab spring water.

Graffiti ultimately wins out over proper art because it becomes part of your city, it' s a tool; "I'll meet you in that pub, you know, the one opposite that wall with a picture of a monkey holding a chainsaw". I mean, how much more useful can a painting be than that?

I think its pretty clear that film is the pre-eminent art form of our age. If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel. Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it’s probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.

As far as I can tell the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on daytrips with the art departments.

It's impossible to predict which paintings will last and which won't. In New Orleans I painted on a dilapidated shop in a street littered with abandoned cars and rotting mattresses, then two hours later the piece was gone. It turned out I'd picked the side of a crack house and the proprietor didn't like the attention.

But there's no way round it-commercial success is a mark of failure for a graffiti artist. We're not supposed to be embraced in that way. When you look at how society rewards so many of the wrong people, it's hard not to view financial reimbursement as a badge of self-serving mediocrity.

I don't think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it.

If you want someone to be ignored then build a life-size bronze statue of them and stick it in the middle of town. It doesn't matter how great you were, it'll always take an unfunny drunk with climbing skills to make people notice you.

The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.