Damien Hirst famous quotes

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Artist #People #Being Ignored

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

#Art #Believe #Medicine

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

#Art #Worry #Sculpture

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

#Uplifting #Art #Believe

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

#Goal #Term #Measure Of Success

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

#Artist #Thinking #Invention

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

#Communication #Want #Sometimes

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Hate #Writing #Artist

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

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Thinking About You #Thinking #Want

Making art, good art, is always a struggle. It can make you happy when you pull it off. There's no better feeling. It's beauteous. But it's always about hard work and inspiration and sweat and good ideas.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Inspiration #Struggle

I think art is good at looking back and looking forward. I don't think art is good at looking head-on. At the end of the day, people are more important than paintings.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Thinking #People

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

#Suicide #Marijuana #Simple

I think suicide is the most perfect thing you can do in life.
-- Damien Hirst

#Suicide #Thinking #Perfect

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

#Color #Giving #Buzz

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

#Art #Want #Art Is

I liked The Beatles a lot when I was growing up.
-- Damien Hirst

#Music #Growing Up #Growing

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Procrastination #Guy #Way

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

#Art #People #Buying

Sensation is an element of what I do, and why not? It's not sensational for the sake of being sensational, but it's sensational art... It's like touching skin.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Touching #Skins

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

#Judgement #Standards #Obscene

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Sharks #Liquid #Imagine

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Writing #Thinking

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

#Steps #Sometimes #Boundaries

I can't wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At the moment if I did certain things people would look at it, consider it and then say "f off". But after a while you can get away with things.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #People #Waiting

I don't really have a career plan.
-- Damien Hirst

#Careers #Planning #Plans

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

#Believe #Ridiculous #Belief

The idea is more important than the object.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Ideas #Important

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

#Believe #Forever #Used

But then architects don't build their own houses.
-- Damien Hirst

#House #Architecture #Architect

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

#Nuts #Infinite #Possibility

I was taught to confront things you can't avoid. Death is one of those things. To live in a society where you're trying not to look at it is stupid because looking at death throws us back into life with more vigour and energy. The fact that flowers don't last for ever makes them beautiful.
-- Damien Hirst

#Beautiful #Stupid #Flower

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

#Believe #Thinking #Issues

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Real #Ambition #Kids

I always ignore money.
-- Damien Hirst

A lot of people thought I wasn't doing anything because I was spending a lot of time socialising and going out, but I've always managed to get work actually done.
-- Damien Hirst

#People #Going Out #Done

I just do what everybody asks me to do, in terms of media and stuff.
-- Damien Hirst

#Media #Stuff #Term

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Integrity #Thinking

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

#Painting #Spots

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Couple #Two #Feet

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

#Thinking #America #Pet

It'd be nice to make lots of money but it's quite difficult, because every time I make lots of money I make a bigger piece that costs lots of money.
-- Damien Hirst

#Money #Nice #Cost

Sometimes when you're drunk you can see better.
-- Damien Hirst

#Drunk #Sometimes

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Goal #Way #Life Is

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...
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Museums #Names

You can always tell a great painting, because when you get close there are all these nervous marks.
-- Damien Hirst

#Greatness #Painting #Nervous

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

#Art #Surroundings #Response

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Looks #Doing Me #Answers

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

#Art #Lying #Confusion

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

#Art #Life And Death #Perfect

As a father, I would say I am more like a mother. I do a lot of hugging.
-- Damien Hirst

#Mother #Father #Hug

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Freedom #Boundaries #Found

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#School #Stuff #Kind

But I think it's more that when you're young, you're invincible, you're immortal - or at least you think you are. The possibilities are limitless, you're inventing the future. Then you get older and suddenly you have a history. It's fixed. You can't change anything. I find that a bit disturbing, to be honest.
-- Damien Hirst

#Thinking #Honest #Limitless

I was brought up Catholic, and I felt the power of art from a very young age - seeing the brutality of all those images of flayed apostles and tortured saints was a pretty strong introduction.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Strong #Catholic

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Song #Kids #Watches

I always feel a bit trapped when a painting goes for millions of pounds and only one person can have it. If you can have that as well as a poster on every student's wall, then you're in a very enviable position. I'd like to do a Damien Hirst for £500 at some point.
-- Damien Hirst

#Wall #Pounds #Students

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Thinking #Mind

Whenever I've been well-known or hitting the press, I've always had to get my credit card out to prove I'm Damien Hirst.
-- Damien Hirst

#Cards #Credit #Hitting

But the answer to how to live is to stop thinking about it. And just to live. But you're doing that anyway. However you intellectualise it, you still just live.
-- Damien Hirst

#Thinking #Answers #Just Live

Picasso, Michelangelo, possibly, might be verging on genius, but I don't think a painter like Rembrandt is a genius.
-- Damien Hirst

#Thinking #Genius #Might

For me, art is always a kind of theater.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Kind #Theater

I did a butterfly show in Berlin, and we had a guy who's an expert on butterflies; who bred them all and who looks after them all in the space.
-- Damien Hirst

#Butterfly #Space #Guy

In fact, the first piece of art I ever sold, I paid someone else to make the next one, so I could actually keep going out drinking.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Drinking #Going Out

When we are no longer children, we are already dead.
-- Damien Hirst

#Children

Immortality is really desirable, I guess. In terms of images, anyway.
-- Damien Hirst

#Immortality #Term

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

#Art #Thinking #Get Over

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Done #Easy

Never let money get in the way of an idea
-- Damien Hirst

#Ideas #Way

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

#Cost #Painting #Increase

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

#Art #Waiting #Get Away

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#People #Influence #Frightened

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

#Art #Imagination #Levels

I'm 43. I'm not ready to sit down in a chair with my name on it yet.
-- Damien Hirst

#Names #Chairs #Ready

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

#Love #Ideas #Crass

I think an ashtray is the most fantastically real thing.
-- Damien Hirst

#Real #Thinking

I realised that you couldn't use the tools of yesterday to communicate today's world. Basically, that was the big light that went on in my head.
-- Damien Hirst

#Light #Yesterday

Most people live in the city and go to the country at the weekend, and that's posh and aristocratic, but actually to live in the country and come to London when you can't take it any more is different.
-- Damien Hirst

#Country #Weekend #Cities

Artists are like everybody else.
-- Damien Hirst

#Artist

I think money is important for everyone, because the lack of it is so painful.
-- Damien Hirst

#Thinking #Important #Painful

But for me, from my point of view, I don't mind if it falls over... if you break the glass you replace the glass, if the sheep falls out you can always get a new sheep.
-- Damien Hirst

#Fall #Glasses #Sheep

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

#Art #Feels

I love art. It is uplifting.
-- Damien Hirst

#Love #Uplifting #Art

The answer to how to live is to stop thinking about it.
-- Damien Hirst

#Thinking #Answers

When it comes to the British monarchy, I prefer to be seduced by an image than presented with a real person. It's kind of a Warhol thing.
-- Damien Hirst

#Real #Kind #Warhol

But I always liked the fact that you get these totally unacceptable images, but they're taken by a really expensive photographer, with great light, and in terms of the quality of the photograph it's a great photograph, but in terms of imagery it's unacceptable, and I like that contradiction.
-- Damien Hirst

#Photography #Taken #Light

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

#Choices #Buying #Building

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

#Copying #Able #Copies

I just hope that I can be kind of like the Beatles. I really like that kind of model. I like the way that without losing integrity they could change through fashion and not look back at the '60s and vomit when they saw what they'd done.
-- Damien Hirst

#Fashion #Integrity #Ego

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.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Childhood #Stuff

I did a load of medicine cabinets a long time ago and I named them after Sex Pistols songs. I suppose I must be getting old if I'm naming work after Philip Larkin poems.
-- Damien Hirst

#Song #Sex #Medicine

I have titles floating around in my head; I have sculptures floating around in my head. It's like a collage.
-- Damien Hirst

#Titles #Floating #Sculpture

What I really like is minimum effort for maximum effect.
-- Damien Hirst

#Effort #Minimum #Maximum

I mean, people listen to music, and they like that, but I think in England, a lot of people don't like contemporary art.
-- Damien Hirst

#Art #Mean #Thinking

Since I was a child, death is definitely something that I think about every day. But I think that everybody does. You try and avoid it, but it's such a big thing that you can't.
-- Damien Hirst

#Children #Thinking #Trying

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

#World #Commerce #Backwards