Top 100 Hirst Quotes
#1. I felt that a lot of Viking culture had been caricatured and misconstrued. After all, they were far more democratic than the Saxons and the Francs, who were exercising really hierarchical social structures at that time. The Vikings had popular meetings where everything could be discussed.
Michael Hirst
#2. 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.
Damien Hirst
#3. 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.
Damien Hirst
#4. For 'Vikings,' we have to do so much outside shooting, and it's normally - I think with American shows, it'll be 60 or 70 percent inside and a little bit outside, but with us, it's almost 70 percent outside, and that's huge and really difficult.
Michael Hirst
#5. Would that we could choose the last image we see before death closes our eyes forever to this world.
Nick Hirst
#6. But for me, from my point of view, I don't mind if it falls over ... if you break the glass you replace the glass, if the sheep falls out you can always get a new sheep.
Damien Hirst
#7. Being best is a false goal, you have to measure success on your own terms.
Damien Hirst
#8. You've got to be oblivious to other people, the push and pull of other people's opinions, the way other people measure success. It's then that you realize you are 100 percent who you are and you have to use that who-you-are 100 percent in order to create great things.
Damien Hirst
#9. I like the confusion you get between science and religion ... that's where belief lies and art as well.
Damien Hirst
#10. Most people live in the city and go to the country at the weekend, and that's posh and aristocratic, but actually to live in the country and come to London when you can't take it any more is different.
Damien Hirst
#11. the people of Lebanon' were offering a 'model' and a 'strong proof that it is not only Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem which Arab armies and peoples are capable of liberating, but - with one small decision and a bit of determination - [the whole of] Palestine too, from the river to the sea'.4
David Hirst
#12. 'Downton Abbey' is just one cliche after another, and it is a really, really poor piece of drama. But that's only me talking. That's just my take on it.
Michael Hirst
#13. I've been asked to do a retrospective since I was about 28 and I always thought that was a bit odd. It's great to look forward as an artist because in the future the possibilities are infinite; you look back and it's all fixed so it's a scary thing.
Damien Hirst
#14. I couldn't give 'Vikings' away - I mean, I love these people. And I'm not sure anyone else writing it would necessarily have the same feeling towards the characters that I do.
Michael Hirst
#15. On the opposite wall was a Damien Hirst spot painting, bought by Arabella after a decent bonus season. Roger's considered view of the painting, looking at it from aesthetic, art-historical, interior-design, and psychological points of view, was that it had cost forty-seven thousand pounds, plus VAT.
John Lanchester
#16. As an artist you're looking for universal triggers. You want it both ways. You want it to have an immediate impact, and you want it to have deep meanings as well. I'm striving for both. But I hate it when people write things that sound like they've swallowed a f ... dictionary.
Damien Hirst
#17. A lot of people thought I wasn't doing anything because I was spending a lot of time socialising and going out, but I've always managed to get work actually done.
Damien Hirst
#18. It's a great advantage to be able to play people off against each other, isn't it? You go to Christie's and get a quote on something. And then you go to Phillips' and you tell them what Christie's has given you. I like auctions for artists.
Damien Hirst
#19. Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity.
Damien Hirst
#21. I liked The Beatles a lot when I was growing up.
Damien Hirst
#22. 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
#23. With 'The Tudors,' I had a huge amount of material, I mean so many books and so much stuff about what they really said. So, in a way it was kind of trying to strip it out and find the stories inside all this material.
Michael Hirst
#24. You'd never look at a Rembrandt and say, 'That's just wood and canvas and paint - how much?!' It's all about how many people want it. It works on a pair of jeans as well - they're just material and stitching, and as soon as you walk out of the shop, they're worth nothing.
Damien Hirst
#25. The difference between art about death and actual death is that one's a celebration and the other's a dull fact.
Damien Hirst
#26. 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
#27. A painting probably is the most shocking increase in value, from what it costs to make to what you sell it for.
Damien Hirst
#28. I used to believe I was going to live forever. And then you suddenly become aware that you're not.
Damien Hirst
#29. No, I don't believe in genius. I believe in freedom. I think anyone can do it. Anyone can be like Rembrandt.
Damien Hirst
#30. I've found that using historical material and being rooted in historical material is liberating because I always think to myself, 'Well, this actually happened, and this is fantastic!' That's why I don't like fantasy, in a way. Because it's sort of in emptiness.
Michael Hirst
#31. Pupils may learn many things when a teacher is not in fact teaching.
Paul Q. Hirst
#32. In fact, the first piece of art I ever sold, I paid someone else to make the next one, so I could actually keep going out drinking.
Damien Hirst
#33. I quite like it to be risky. I'm not ready to sit down in a chair with my name on it yet. I've arrived at that point in the art world where there really is a chair that you sit in.
Damien Hirst
#34. I'm a massive fan of Brit Art in general and Damien Hirst in particular. I think he's an absolute genius and should be celebrated in every way.
David Morrissey
#35. For artists it's a lot easier to make art in bad times than it is in good times. When you've got no money it's easy to just drink your way through it and make great art. But if you're making lots of money it can be very problematic.
Damien Hirst
#36. 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.
Damien Hirst
#38. 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
#39. When I did 'The Tudors,' there was massive information available and a ready-made market.
Michael Hirst
#40. Great art, she felt, had a calming effect on the viewer; it made one stop in awe, which is exactly what Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol did not do. You did not stop in awe. They stopped you in your tracks, perhaps, but that was not the same thing; awe was something quite different
Alexander McCall Smith
#41. I'm very bad at delegating writing responsibilities, because I've never been able to do it; I've never had any help or looked for any help.
Michael Hirst
#42. The American obsession with 'Downton' amuses me slightly because it's such a fiction. I've always been questioned about my historical veracity, and 'Downton' just flies past, when it's completely made up.
Michael Hirst
#43. The Vikings certainly didn't write anything about themselves; it was not a literate, but rather a pagan, culture. So what we get was written later by Christian monks. But there were occasional reportings and recordings of people who had traded usually with the Vikings.
Michael Hirst
#44. I always try to make everyone mellow down, make sure everybody's happy. The people I have employed have always kind of stayed with us. A lot of people who come to work for you are artists in their own right. And they want to work for you because they want to pick something up.
Damien Hirst
#46. People always say that my work is sensational or shocking but there are truly shocking things you could do, and my sculptures don't go anywhere near that.
Damien Hirst
#47. The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel.
Damien Hirst
#48. But I'm more interested in why people are frightened by Jaws and why Jaws was such a hit than saying Spielberg's my main influence.
Damien Hirst
#49. I just hope that I can be kind of like the Beatles. I really like that kind of model. I like the way that without losing integrity they could change through fashion and not look back at the '60s and vomit when they saw what they'd done.
Damien Hirst
#50. When it comes to the British monarchy, I prefer to be seduced by an image than presented with a real person. It's kind of a Warhol thing.
Damien Hirst
#51. 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.
Damien Hirst
#52. That's the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice, you can make great paintings.
Damien Hirst
#53. That was the issue: all these sick people trying to make other sick people better. Where were the strong, healthy people? They were probably the one's making everyone else sick. The
Francis Hirst
#54. The spot paintings and spin paintings were trying to find mechanical ways to make paintings.
Damien Hirst
#55. I love color. I feel it inside me. It gives me a buzz.
Damien Hirst
#56. I'm 43. I'm not ready to sit down in a chair with my name on it yet.
Damien Hirst
#57. It'd be nice to make lots of money but it's quite difficult, because every time I make lots of money I make a bigger piece that costs lots of money.
Damien Hirst
#58. I always feel like the art's there and I just see it, so it's not really a lot of work.
Damien Hirst
#59. 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
#60. But I always liked the fact that you get these totally unacceptable images, but they're taken by a really expensive photographer, with great light, and in terms of the quality of the photograph it's a great photograph, but in terms of imagery it's unacceptable, and I like that contradiction.
Damien Hirst
#61. I think I like big issues, but I don't believe in God or religion.
Damien Hirst
#62. I love Damien Hirst. I respect his work a great deal, and I am happy that the polka dots I started using have become a symbol of love and peace around the world with everybody joining hands to use them in this way.
Yayoi Kusama
#63. There's no possible way you can get what you want.
Damien Hirst
#64. You've got to be able to copy things faithfully before you can deviate.
Damien Hirst
#65. If the choice is between buying another building or a Pollock, I'd go for the Pollock every time.
Damien Hirst
#66. Here's one from me: 'You have to be aware that everyone else is thinking far too hard about themselves to be thinking about you, whoever you are.' If you want it, you can have it. Once you know that, you can be free.
Damien Hirst
#67. The coolest party I've ever D.J.ed would have to be for the artist Damien Hirst. It was an amazing party in Berlin. I had such a great time, and people danced all night long.
Chelsea Leyland
#68. I had a passport where I wrote 'artist' under 'occupation' and I remember thinking, 'That's it, it's proved!'
Damien Hirst
#69. The idea of being a painter, I've always thought, is better than being an artist or a sculptor.
Damien Hirst
#70. You have to step over the boundaries sometimes just to find out where theyare.
Damien Hirst
#71. I have a Damien Hirst spot painting which I love. It has pride of place over my dining-room table.
Cat Deeley
#73. But then architects don't build their own houses.
Damien Hirst
#74. Conversations with a trusted friend pull us into a new point of view as if we are supporting characters in a work of fiction. In both, we spread our stories, ideas and emotions outside of ourselves so we can view them from distinct angles.
Teresa Hirst
#75. It's ridiculous what I do. I can't believe in it - but I have to.
Damien Hirst
#76. When you've just done it, you're not sure. But when you've sat with it for a couple of hours and you don't want to do anything more to it, that's a great feeling. It can stand on its own two feet.
Damien Hirst
#77. If you're in America or Europe, walk for three blocks, and you'll pass about 14 Vikings. Their reach was immense.
Michael Hirst
#78. When you're making a TV drama, the showrunner is God, and so however onerous and difficult and consuming that responsibility is, you're being treated with respect, so it changes your whole outlook to the production. You're being asked about costumes, set design, music, every aspect of the show.
Michael Hirst
#79. I think comedy is the hardest actual form of writing there is.
Michael Hirst
#80. 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
#81. I can't understand why most people believe in medicine and don't believe in art, without questioning either.
Damien Hirst
#83. I just do what everybody asks me to do, in terms of media and stuff.
Damien Hirst
#85. People love cliches. If you can give people cliches, that's very good TV, then.
Michael Hirst
#86. Commercials are so contemporary and up to date that when you're involved in that visual world, you can't really go backwards.
Damien Hirst
#87. I think suicide is the most perfect thing you can do in life.
Damien Hirst
#88. Picasso, Michelangelo, possibly, might be verging on genius, but I don't think a painter like Rembrandt is a genius.
Damien Hirst
#89. I'm a huge fan of Michael Hirst, and I'm a huge fan of historical drama.
Donal Logue
#90. Until the late 1970s there'd either be only black or white in the paintings or if there were colours it would be a small amount, not a large area, and with the color separated from other colors by black or white (which is formula for Damien Hirst's successful dot paintings, incidentally).
Matthew Collings
#91. I believe all painting and art should be uplifting for the viewer.
Damien Hirst
#92. There was a point I could have just churned out the spot and spin paintings for ever and laughed all the way to the bank.
Damien Hirst
#93. Once I engage in something, I really engage in it, and I love the process of reading and researching because I come from an academic background.
Michael Hirst
#94. I gave up painting by 16. I secretly thought I would have been Rembrandt by then.
Damien Hirst
#95. Of course I had written a film about Elizabeth I, and I loved the Tudor period, and I think at the time Working Title and I had debated on whether to do Elizabeth I or Henry VIII. I'd always wanted to do Henry VIII. Like Elizabeth, I'd had this feeling that it had never properly been addressed.
Michael Hirst
#96. Because it's visual art, a lot of it comes from childhood experience but then a lot comes from the visual language - in advertising and stuff like that - which is around us.
Damien Hirst
#97. When art is defined by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, you've got a society that's impoverished.
Robert Adams
#98. Immortality is really desirable, I guess. In terms of images, anyway.
Damien Hirst
#99. If it is the case that our activities depend on how we ourselves see them, what we believe about them, then if we have crazy, fuzzy ideas about teaching, we will be likely to do crazy and fuzzy things in its name.
Paul Q. Hirst
#100. I sometimes feel that I have nothing to say and I want to communicate this.
Damien Hirst
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