Quotes By David Hockney

I'm very attracted to the great open spaces of the West.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

I prefer living in color.

In fact, most artists want to make things a bit more difficult for themselves as they go along, to challenge themselves.

Television is becoming a collage - there are so many channels that you move through them making a collage yourself. In that sense, everyone sees something a bit different.

California is always in my mind.

I worked in the NHS as a hospital orderly during my national service, and people thought it was a noble service. But over the years it's lost its humanity.

But slowly I began to use cameras and then think about what it was that was going on. It took me a long time, I mean I actually played with cameras and photography for about 20 years.

You must plan to be spontaneous.

I was always struck by how Picasso had no interest in music.

I'm a bit claustrophobic, I don't like crowds, I live by the sea - that's what I see when I come out of my house in Bridlington.

But the moment you use an ordinary camera, you are not seeing the picture, remember, meaning, you had to remember what you've taken. Now you could see it of course, with a digital thing, but remember in 1982 you couldn't.

Always live in the ugliest house on the street - then you don't have to look at it.

It's no good saying I wished I could go out more, because I can't. But I don't bother about it too much.

Cubism was an attack on the perspective that had been known and used for 500 years. It was the first big, big change. It confused people: they said, 'Things don't look like that!'

I'm a bit of a propagandist.

People criticized me for my photography. They said it's not art.

I'm a natural sceptic.

I think I am seeing more clearly now than ever.

Being able to draw means being able to put things in believable space. People who don't draw very well can't do that.

I do do a lot of talking, because it saves me listening.

I've always felt very English.

West Yorkshire is quite dramatic and beautiful, the crags and things.

Most artists work all the time, they do actually, especially good artists, they work all the time, what else is there to do? I mean you do.

A lot of people, given the chance, would blow up everything, and you and me.

I stay up nights and fiddle with my opera designs. It's a bit obsessive. That's why I can't do it all the time.

Easel painting means small painting.

The moment I got a very big studio, everything took off.

I think my father would have liked to have been an artist, actually. But I think he didn't quite have perhaps the drive or, I don't know, I mean he had a family to bring up I suppose.

I've realized that I can do performances.