Damien Hirst Quotes

"So smoking is the perfect way to commit suicide without actually dying. I smoke because it's bad, it's really simple."

"I think suicide is the most perfect thing you can do in life."

"I've been asked to do a retrospective since I was about 28 and I always thought that was a bit odd. It's great to look forward as an artist because in the future the possibilities are infinite; you look back and it's all fixed so it's a scary thing."

"Sometimes when you're drunk you can see better."

"It's such a crass idea - you're either in love or out of love."

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

"Being best is a false goal, you have to measure success on your own terms."

"I think an ashtray is the most fantastically real thing."

"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."

"Immortality is really desirable, I guess. In terms of images, anyway."

"When I used to do abstract paintings at school, like everyone else, the tutor said these would make great curtains. I would always neglect the formal stuff that was going on by using colour, because colour kind of came naturally to me."

"I used to believe I was going to live forever. And then you suddenly become aware that you're not."

"I always feel like the art's there and I just see it, so it's not really a lot of work."

"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 idea of going on tour for the rest of my life with old works is not that exciting. As an artist I definitely think the work in future is going to be better than the work in the past, otherwise why do it?"

"Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity."

"I have always been aware that you have to get people listening before you can change their minds. Any artist's big fear is being ignored, so if you get debate, that's great."

"Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different."

"For me, art is always a kind of theater."

"The goal in life is to be solid, whereas the way that life works is totally fluid, so you can never actually achieve that goal."

"People always say that my work is sensational or shocking but there are truly shocking things you could do, and my sculptures don't go anywhere near that."

"A painting probably is the most shocking increase in value, from what it costs to make to what you sell it for."

"But I'm more interested in why people are frightened by Jaws and why Jaws was such a hit than saying Spielberg's my main influence."

"It's amazing what you can do with an E in A-Level art, a twisted imagination and a chainsaw."

"But whenever I look at the question of how to live, the answer's always staring me in the face. I'm already doing it."

"You need a big ego to be an artist."

"People don't like contemporary art, but all art starts life as contemporary - I can't really see a difference."

"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."

"I think I like big issues, but I don't believe in God or religion."

"In an artwork you're always looking for artistic decisions, so an ashtray is perfect. An ashtray has got life and death."