Jean-Michel Basquiat Quotes

#1. Some days I can't get an idea, and I think, 'Man, I'm just washed up,' but it's just a mood.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#2. Fire will attract more attention than any other cry for help.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#3. I have a painting where somebody's holding a chicken, and underneath the chicken is somebody's head.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#4. SAMO as an end to to mindwash religion, nowhere politics and bogus philosophy.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#5. I'm not a real person. I'm a legend.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#6. Occasionally, when I get mad at a woman, I'll do some great, awful painting about her.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#7. I thought I was going to be a bum the rest of my life.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#8. My favorite Twombly is 'Apollo and the Artist,' with the big 'Apollo' written across it.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#9. I had some money, I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#10. I like kids' work more than work by real artists any day.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#11. There are about 30 words around you all the time, like 'thread' or 'exit.'

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#12. I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I'd draw a big ram's head, really messy. I'd never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#13. If you wanna talk about influence, man, then you've got to realize that influence is not influence. It's simply someone's idea going through my new mind.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#14. I wanted to build up a name for myself.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#15. Charles Saatchi has never liked my work at all.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#16. The country makes me more paranoid, you know? I think the crazy people out there are little crazier.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#17. I have done only two portraits: one of the artist Francesco Clemente and another of Andy Warhol.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#18. I am not a black artist, I am an artist.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#19. I start a picture and I finish it. I don't think about art while I work. I try to think about life.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#20. Since I was seventeen I thought I might be a star. I'd think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix ... I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#21. Every single line means something.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#22. I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was young.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#23. Most Young Kings Get Their Heads Cut Off.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#24. The black person is the protagonist in most of my paintings. I realized that I didn't see many paintings with black people in them.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#25. The more I paint the more I like everything.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#26. I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#27. If I'm away from painting for a week, I get bored.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#28. I cross out words so you will see them more; the fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#29. I played a guitar with a file, and a synthesizer.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#30. Medicine men live in caves.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

#31. I wanted to be a star, not a gallery mascot.

Jean-Michel Basquiat