Top 137 Quotes & Sayings by Damien Hirst - Page 2

I've spent a long time avoiding painting and dealing with it from a distance. But as I get older, I'm more comfortable with it.

It's a great advantage to be able to play people off against each other, isn't it? You go to Christie's and get a quote on something. And then you go to Phillips' and you tell them what Christie's has given you. I like auctions for artists.

'Painting like a child' isn't a negative for me... it's something only great artists can really achieve. The childlike quality of some of Picasso's drawings is precisely what makes them so masterful and extraordinary; the ability to express complete visions, feelings and portraits through a continuous line.

I always look at money not as a motivating factor but as an element in the composition. You can't ignore it, but you've got to be very careful that it's not motivating you.

I used to watch 'Top of the Pops' when I was a kid and say 'Yeah!' or 'Boo!' at every single song. So there was nothing in the middle. You brutally put it on one side or another.

The spot paintings and spin paintings were trying to find mechanical ways to make paintings.

You'd never look at a Rembrandt and say, 'That's just wood and canvas and paint - how much?!' It's all about how many people want it. It works on a pair of jeans as well - they're just material and stitching, and as soon as you walk out of the shop, they're worth nothing.

The difference between art about death and actual death is that one's a celebration and the other's a dull fact.

Even as a kid in drawing class, I had real ambition. I wanted to be the best in the class, but there was always some other feller who was better; so I thought, 'It can't be about being the best, it has to be about the drawing itself, what you do with it.' That's kind of stuck with me.

I gave up painting by 16. I secretly thought I would have been Rembrandt by then.

That's the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice, you can make great paintings.

There was a point I could have just churned out the spot and spin paintings for ever and laughed all the way to the bank.

Buy art, build a museum, put your name on it, let people in for free. That's as close as you can get to immortality.

I definitely think about death. And every day your relationship with death changes. And every day I sort of feel like I know it more. I've always thought about it.

As an artist you're looking for universal triggers. You want it both ways. You want it to have an immediate impact, and you want it to have deep meanings as well. I'm striving for both. But I hate it when people write things that sound like they've swallowed a f... dictionary.

I love art. It is uplifting.

To be an artist is not about fame; it's about art, which is this intangible thing that has got to have lots of integrity, whereas being famous doesn't really take any integrity. But I think you have to admit that you want to be famous, otherwise you can't be an artist. Art and fame together are like a desire to live forever.

Art comes from everywhere. It's your response to your surroundings.

When you've just done it, you're not sure. But when you've sat with it for a couple of hours and you don't want to do anything more to it, that's a great feeling. It can stand on its own two feet.

I just wanted to find out where the boundaries were. So far I've found there aren't any. I just wanted to be stopped, and no one will stop me.

I can’t wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it.

I don't think I'd want my pet in formaldehyde, but I guess in America they would.

The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel.

I sometimes feel that I have nothing to say and I want to communicate this.

Because it's visual art, a lot of it comes from childhood experience but then a lot comes from the visual language - in advertising and stuff like that - which is around us.

The infinite possibilities. That's what used to do my nut in.

Never let money get in the way of an idea

You've got to be oblivious to other people, the push and pull of other people's opinions, the way other people measure success. It's then that you realize you are 100 percent who you are and you have to use that who-you-are 100 percent in order to create great things.

You've got to be able to copy things faithfully before you can deviate.

You've really got to get down on the floor with yourself and get low in order to make great art. I think you've just got to accept who you are and do the most unbelievable things.

As soon as something becomes art I think you get over the fear

I wanted a shark that's big enough to eat you, and in a large enough amount of liquid so that you could imagine you were in there with it.

You have to step over the boundaries sometimes just to find out where theyare.

I think as an artist you have to reinvent yourself every day.

It's very easy to say, 'I could have done that,' after someone's done it. But I did it. You didn't. It didn't exist until I did it.

I don't see what else you can spend your money on... If you want to own things, art is a pretty good bet.

I love color. I feel it inside me. It gives me a buzz.

I believe all painting and art should be uplifting for the viewer.

Here's one from me: 'You have to be aware that everyone else is thinking far too hard about themselves to be thinking about you, whoever you are.' If you want it, you can have it. Once you know that, you can be free.

I've never learned to drive because I get lots of ideas when I'm a passenger in a car. I love to get in a car with a driver and just think and work things out.

Art goes on in your head. If you said something interesting, that might be a title for a work of art and I'd write it down.

It's ridiculous what I do. I can't believe in it - but I have to.

I like the confusion you get between science and religion … that’s where belief lies and art as well.

Commercials are so contemporary and up to date that when you're involved in that visual world, you can't really go backwards.

Even as a kid in drawing class, I had real ambition. I wanted to be the best in the class, but there was always some other feller who was better; so I thought, It cant be about being the best, it has to be about the drawing itself, what you do with it. Thats kind of stuck with me.

For artists it's a lot easier to make art in bad times than it is in good times. When you've got no money it's easy to just drink your way through it and make great art. But if you're making lots of money it can be very problematic.

The spot paintings, the spin paintings, they're all a mechanical way to avoid the actual guy in a room, myself, with a blank canvas.

What I really like is minimum effort for maximum effect.

I can't understand why most people believe in medicine and don't believe in art, without questioning either.

The answer to how to live is to stop thinking about it.

Art is the closest you can get to immortality, though it's a poor substitute - you're working for people not yet born - and people want it because it is brilliant. It ends up in museums anyway; the rich have to give it back to the people, it's their only option. There are no pockets in a shroud.

But I could never make a judgement that something was obscene.

When we are no longer children, we are already dead.

I don't really have a career plan.

If the choice is between buying another building or a Pollock, I'd go for the Pollock every time.

As an artist, you don't stop making art because people are not buying it.

The idea is more important than the object.

Death's just something that inspires me, not something that pulls me down. I used to get called morbid at school. I have always loved horror films; I like being frightened.

I think I've always been afraid of painting, really. Right from the beginning. All my paintings are about painting without a painter. Like a kind of mechanical form of painting. Like finding some imaginary computer painter, or a robot who paints.

There's always something you missed or something you didn't notice or somehow you got wrong... I don't really have a beginning.