Famous Quotes & Sayings

Damien Hirst

I quite like it to be risky. I'm not ready to sit down in a chair with my name on it yet. I've arrived at that point in the art world where there really is a chair that you sit in.

Damien Hirst

For me, art is always a kind of theater. When I started the spot paintings I made them as an endless series. But I was never serious about it being an endless series. It was just an implied endless series. The theater means you just have to make it look good for that moment in the spotlight.

Damien Hirst

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

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

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 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 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.

Damien Hirst

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

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

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

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

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

Damien Hirst

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

Damien Hirst

Artists are like everybody else.

Damien Hirst

For me, art is always a kind of theater.

Damien Hirst

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

Damien Hirst

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

Damien Hirst

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

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

Damien Hirst

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

Damien Hirst

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

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

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

Damien Hirst

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.

Damien Hirst

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

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

Damien Hirst

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

Damien Hirst

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.

Cory Monteith

When the music hits, you feel no pain, to quote Bob Marley. But it’s true. It’s like all art and creation: You’re completely in the moment, and you just feel free.

Cory Monteith

If you focus on what you want and you persevere, chances are you succeed. You know, that's what I found. It might not be in acting - it might be in business, financing, it might be in the arts, it might be in anything. But it's all about focusing and being inspired.

Clive Bell

Detail is the heart of realism, and the fatty degeneration of art.

Clive Bell

We have no other means of recognising a work of art than our feeling for it.