Quotes By Damien Hirst

For me, art is always a kind of theater.

I think an ashtray is the most fantastically real thing.

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.

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

I always ignore money.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Artists are like everybody else.

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.

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

The idea of being a painter, I've always thought, is better than being an artist or a sculptor.

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

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

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.

I made one untitled piece.

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.

But it's like the horror of being in a studio with a blank canvas. I used to always run out of ideas because there are so many possibilities and I would just think, well what am I going to do now!

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

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