Quotes By Damien Hirst
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
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
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
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
I used to believe I was going to live forever. And then you suddenly become aware that you're not.
Damien Hirst
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
In an artwork you're always looking for artistic decisions, so an ashtray is perfect. An ashtray has got life and death.
Damien Hirst
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.
Damien Hirst
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?
Damien Hirst
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
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.
Damien Hirst
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.
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
Picasso, Michelangelo, possibly, might be verging on genius, but I don't think a painter like Rembrandt is a genius.
Damien Hirst
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
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
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
The idea of being a painter, I've always thought, is better than being an artist or a sculptor.
Damien Hirst
The difference between art about death and actual death is that one's a celebration and the other's a dull fact.
Damien Hirst