Top 100 Jenny Holzer Quotes
#1. I began to see that the short texts I was writing were poster material.
Jenny Holzer
#3. I'm always trying to bring unusual content to a different audience - a non-art-world audience.
Jenny Holzer
#4. WITH BLEEDING INSIDE THE HEAD
THERE IS A METALLIC TASTE AT
THE BACK OF THE THROAT.
Jenny Holzer
#7. Alienation produces eccentrics or revolutionary.
Jenny Holzer
#8. With you inside me comes the knowledge of my death.
Jenny Holzer
#9. SOME PEOPLE LIKE TO NIBBLE ON
THE INSIDES OF THEIR OWN CHEEKS.
IV'E SEEN AN OTHERWISE LOVELY GIRL
CONTORT HER FACE TO REACH A FAVORITE SPOT.
THERE ARE BIT LINES WHERE REPEATED NIPS
HAVE BUILT RIDGES OF SCAR TISSUE.
Jenny Holzer
#10. I'd paint long strips of canvas and abandon them on the beach, or put bread out in geometric patterns for the pigeons downtown. I wanted people to find something nice and intriguing to puzzle over. Then I'd go back to see if the things were still there, or if anyone would notice.
Jenny Holzer
#11. When my daughter was young, she thought all electronic signs were mine.
Jenny Holzer
#12. Fear is the most elegant weapon, your hands are never messy
Jenny Holzer
#13. OBVIOUSLY YOU STRIKE OUT
AGAINST PEOPLE WITHIN RANGE.
IT'S CATHARTIC TO AFFECT
SOMEONE WHEN YOU'RE ANGRY.
ALTERNATIVELY, CHOOSE
ENEMIES IMPOSSIBLY FAR AWAY
SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO FIGHT.
Jenny Holzer
#15. I suspect you've noticed that making art can be lonely.
Jenny Holzer
#16. BY YOUR RESPONSE TO DANGER IT IS
EASY TO TELL HOW YOU HAVE LIVED
AND WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO YOU.
YOU SHOW WHETHER YOU WANT TO STAY ALIVE,
WHETHER YOU THINK YOU DESERVE TO,
AND WHETHER YOU BELIEVE
IT'S ANY GOOD TO ACT.
Jenny Holzer
#17. If you behaved nicely, the communists wouldn't exist.
Jenny Holzer
#18. How do you resign yourself to something that will never be? You stop wanting just that thing. You go numb. Or you kill the agent of desire.
Jenny Holzer
#19. Slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison
Jenny Holzer
#20. That's the test of street art - to see if anybody stopped. People would cross out ones they didn't like and would star others. I liked that people would engage with them.
Jenny Holzer
#21. I wanted to support things that are helpful to people and maybe bash what I think is dangerous. So I switched from being everybody to being myself.
Jenny Holzer
#22. You confuse me with something that is in you. I will not predict how you want to use me.
Jenny Holzer
#23. In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy.
Jenny Holzer
#24. WHAT A SHOCK WHEN THEY TELL YOU
IT WON'T HURT AND YOU ALMOST
TURN INSIDE OUT WHEN THEY BEGIN.
Jenny Holzer
#26. With all the holes in you already there's no reason to define the outside environment as alien.
Jenny Holzer
#27. Someone else's body is a place for your mind to go.
Jenny Holzer
#28. It's necessary to start most work alone. But I'm tickled to death when I can pull somebody in or join someone, whether it's borrowing poetry or traveling with an associate.
Jenny Holzer
#29. Turn soft and lovely anytime you have the chance.
Jenny Holzer
#30. Romantic love was invented to manipulate women
Jenny Holzer
#31. Faithfulness is a social not a biological law.
Jenny Holzer
#32. Enjoy yourself because you can't change anything anyway.
Jenny Holzer
#34. At times your unconsciousness is truer than your conscious mind
Jenny Holzer
#35. Expiring for love is beautiful but stupid.
Jenny Holzer
#36. THERE'S NO REASON TO SLEEP
CURLED UP AND BENT.
IT'S NOT COMFORTABLE,
IT'S NOT GOOD FOR YOU, AND IT
DOESN'T PROTECT YOU FROM DANGER.
IF YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT AN ATTACK
YOU SHOULD STAY AWAKE
OR SLEEP LIGHTLY WITH
LIMBS UNFURLED FOR ACTION.
Jenny Holzer
#38. A sense of timing is the mark of a genius.
Jenny Holzer
#39. I think of a piece, and then people who are competent fabricate it. But lately I've started finger painting, which probably should be a joke but isn't!
Jenny Holzer
#42. IT CAN BE HELPFUL TO THINK OF
THEM EATING YOUR FAVORITE FOODS
AND OCCASIONALLY THROWING UP
AND GETTING BITS STUCK
IN THEIR NOSES.
Jenny Holzer
#43. At times inactivity is preferable to mindless functioning.
Jenny Holzer
#44. Being happy is more important than anything else.
Jenny Holzer
#45. Remember you always have freedom of choice.
Jenny Holzer
#46. What urge will save us now that sex won't?
Jenny Holzer
#48. It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender.
Jenny Holzer
#49. It's good to be employable, but I hope to show the truth. The paintings seem true because nobody wants me to do them.
Jenny Holzer
#50. TRYING TO BE POPULAR IN HIGH SCHOOL IS LIKE TRYING TO BE MAYOR OF A CITY THAT WON'T EXIST IN FOUR YEARS.
Jenny Holzer
#51. HOW CONCISE THAT YOU CAN CRY FROM
AWFUL WOUNDS, DESERTION, HAPPINESS,
MEMORIES, HUMILIATION,
DISAPPOINTMENT OR GRANDEUR.
Jenny Holzer
#52. There's a fine line between information and propaganda.
Jenny Holzer
#53. IF THE HOUSE IS BITTER COLD,
ALL THE FLUIDS THEREIN,
IF NOT FROZEN, ARE STIFF AND SLOW.
Jenny Holzer
#54. IT'S NO FUN WATCHING PEOPLE WOUND
THEMSELVES SO THAT THEY CAN HOLE UP,
NURSE THEMSELVES BACK TO HEALTH,
AND REPEAT THE CYCLE.
THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.
Jenny Holzer
#56. If you have many desires your life will be interesting.
Jenny Holzer
#57. WHEN YOU'RE TRYING SOMETHING NEW,
YOU'RE TORN BETWEEN
ANTICIPATING A DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE
AND THINKING YOU'RE A FOOL TO
IGNORE WHAT YOU KNOW YOU LIKE.
Jenny Holzer
#59. If you are an artist and you are honest, you are never good enough.
Jenny Holzer
#61. SPIT ALL OVER SOMEONE WITH A MOUTHFUL OF MILK IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT SOMETHING ABOUT THEIR PERSONALITY FAST.
Jenny Holzer
#62. One thing that changed when I moved upstate was that I became interested in different materials. I started making the stone benches because I was seeing rocks.
Jenny Holzer
#63. Anger or hate can be a useful motivating force
Jenny Holzer
#64. Knowing yourself lets you understand others.
Jenny Holzer
#65. It is embarrassing to be caught and killed for stupid reasons
Jenny Holzer
#66. I get up about four times a night and go back to sleep, or not. Then I swill tea around 8 a.m. I answer e-mail, while I stall thinking about whatever scares me.
Jenny Holzer
#67. It's important to keep life simple, and if I'm traveling, I only can do a couple of things, and those are the things that I'm meant to be doing.
Jenny Holzer
#69. A positive attitude means all the difference in the world.
Jenny Holzer
#70. Ideals are replaced by conventional goals at a certain age.
Jenny Holzer
#71. Hands on your breast can keep your heart beating.
Jenny Holzer
#73. MORE THAN ONCE I'VE AWAKENED WITH
TEARS RUNNING DOWN MY CHEEKS.
I HAVE HAD TO THINK WHETHER
I WAS CRYING OR WHETHER IT
IS INVOLUNTARY, LIKE DROOLING.
Jenny Holzer
#74. On the worst days, I don't feel like an artist.
Jenny Holzer
#75. One of the glories and terrors of working in public is that you do see if your output means anything to anyone.
Jenny Holzer
#76. She has no taste left to her and this makes it easier for me.
The color of her where she is inside is enough to make me kill her.
Jenny Holzer
#77. So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.
Jenny Holzer
#78. I SAW THEIR STUNNING BODIES GO SLACK
AND GET HAIR IN THE WRONG PLACES
AND I VOWED I WOULD NOT PERMIT
THAT TO HAPPEN TO ME.
Jenny Holzer
#79. Being alone with yourself is increasingly unpopular.
Jenny Holzer
#81. THE IMPULSE IS TO SQUEEZE AND
FONDLE BABY WILD ANIMALS
BUT THEN THEY'D BE BROKEN AND
WHAT GOOD WOULD THEY BE?
Jenny Holzer
#82. It can be kind of gruesome at times, making things alone.
Jenny Holzer
#83. It's fun wandering around other people's minds.
Jenny Holzer
#84. Deviants are sacrificed to increase group solidarity.
Jenny Holzer
#85. I wanted to be an abstract painter, but I was rotten at it.
Jenny Holzer
#86. I really like doing the laundry, because I succeed at it. But I loathe putting it away. It is already clean.
Jenny Holzer
#87. HOW DO YOU FIND THE RIGHT POSITION
TO LIE DOWN WITH PEOPLE
OR EVEN ANIMALS?
OFTEN ONE OF THE PARTNERS IS
SMOTHERED OR CONTORTED.
WHEN DONE PROPERLY, THOUGH,
EVERYONE IS HAPPY.
Jenny Holzer
#89. I am not free because I can be exploded anytime.
Jenny Holzer
#90. Savor kindness because cruelty is always possible later.
Jenny Holzer
#92. I moved to New York in the 1970s and started writing when I was at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.
Jenny Holzer
#93. The most profound things are inexpressible.
Jenny Holzer
#94. I was hesitant to approach people. I'm socially awkward. But I was working on a number of memorials, and finally it dawned on me: These are memorials to people who wrote, so I should use their writing. That's how I started to quit.
Jenny Holzer
#95. It's better to be a good person than a famous person.
Jenny Holzer
#96. When you start liking pain things start to get interesting.
Jenny Holzer
#97. Disgust is the appropriate response to most situations
Jenny Holzer
#98. THERE IS A PERIOD WHEN IT IS CLEAR
THAT YOU HAVE GONE WRONG
BUT YOU CONTINUE.
SOMETIMES THERE IS A
LUXURIOUS AMOUNT OF TIME
BEFORE ANYTHING BAD HAPPENS.
Jenny Holzer
#99. I used language because I wanted to offer content that people - not necessarily art people - could understand.
Jenny Holzer
#100. I wasn't sure I was an artist, so I thought maybe I just was throwing ideas out for people to consider.
Jenny Holzer
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