Damien Hirst Quotes

"The idea is more important than the object." ~ Damien Hirst

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

 "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

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

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

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

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

 "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

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

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

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

 "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

 "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

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

 "When we are no longer children, we are already dead." ~ 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

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

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

 "Death's just something that inspires me, not something that pulls me down. I used to get called morbid at school. I have always loved horror films; I like being frightened." ~ Damien Hirst

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

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

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

 "I think suicide is the most perfect thing you can do in life." ~ 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've never learned to drive because I get lots of ideas when I'm a passenger in a car. I love to get in a car with a driver and just think and work things out." ~ Damien Hirst

 "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

 "I definitely think about death. And every day your relationship with death changes. And every day I sort of feel like I know it more. I've always thought about it." ~ Damien Hirst

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

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