Top 35 Damien Hirst Quotes

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.

Kids are naturally gifted at art from a very young age. The problem is when they get older and become self-conscious. The process should always be fun, though.

I made one untitled piece.

My Mum brought me up to believe that if you look after the pennies then the pounds look after themselves, and I could never do it.

So smoking is the perfect way to commit suicide without actually dying. I smoke because it’s bad, it’s really simple.

Artists are like everybody else.

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

Being best is a false goal, you have to measure success on your own terms.

No, I don’t believe in genius. I believe in freedom. I think anyone can do it. Anyone can be like Rembrandt.

It’s good to have a title that’s not just one word. If you’re gonna title it, you might as well try and say something.

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.

Museums are for dead artists. I’d never show my work in the Tate. You’d never get me in that place.

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.

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

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

I’ve spent a long time avoiding painting and dealing with it from a distance. But as I get older, I’m more comfortable with it.

Since I was a child, death is definitely something that I think about every day. But I think that everybody does. You try and avoid it, but it’s such a big thing that you can’t.

I remember when you used to have your profession on your passport and I always thought that being a painter was the best one to be, because my heroes were Goya and Francis Bacon.

I’ve had laser eye surgery and I don’t wear glasses any more, so people just go, ‘You’re not Damien Hirst.’ I don’t get recognized on the street.

I think an ashtray is the most fantastically real thing.

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

You need a big ego to be an artist.

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.

As a father, I would say I am more like a mother. I do a lot of hugging.

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.

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.

Whenever I’ve been well-known or hitting the press, I’ve always had to get my credit card out to prove I’m Damien Hirst.

For me, art is always a kind of theater.

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

I used to watch ‘Top of the Pops’ when I was a kid and say ‘Yeah!’ or ‘Boo!’ at every single song. So there was nothing in the middle. You brutally put it on one side or another.

A painting probably is the most shocking increase in value, from what it costs to make to what you sell it for.

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.

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.

That’s the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice, you can make great paintings.

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.