- I would rather watch somebody buy their underwear than read a book they wrote.
- In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.
- I am a deeply superficial person.
- Success is when the checks don't bounce.
- I'd prefer to remain a mystery. I never like to give my background and, anyway, I make it all up different every time I'm asked. It's not just that it's part of my image not to tell everything, it's just that I forget what I said the day before, and I have to make it all up over again.
- Business art is the step that comes after art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. After I did the thing called "art" or whatever it's called, I went into business art. I wanted to be an Art Businessman or a Business Artist. Being good in business in the most fascinating kind of art.
- Of course what I think is boring must not be the same as what other people think is, since I could never stand to watch all the most popular action shows on TV, because they're essentially the same plots and the same shots and the same cuts over and over again. Apparently, most people love watching the same basic thing, as long as the details are different. But I'm just the opposite: if I'm going to sit and watch the same thing I saw the night before, I don't want it to be essentially the same - I want it to be exactly the same. Because the more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel.
- My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person.
- Sex is the biggest nothing of all time.
- Our movies may have looked like home movies, but then our home wasn't like anybody else's.
- (revising his earlier quote, during the Disco era) In fifteen minutes, everyone will be famous.
- (his advice about audiences, to The Velvet Underground) Always leave them wanting less.
- Living in New York City gives people real incentives to want things that nobody else wants.
- I like the taste of the last chocolate in the box.
- If it doesn't make sense it's art.
- Don't read your reviews; weigh them.
- Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets.
- Everyone must have a Fantasy.
- I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumours to my dogs.
- I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.
- [after being asked why he was doing self-portraits] I've kinda run out of ideas.
- The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.
- The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting.
- Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.
- I like to be the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place. Being the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place is worth it because something interesting always happens.
- A picture means I know where I was every minute. That's why I take pictures. It's a visual diary.
- I think everybody should be nice to everybody.
- People should fall in love with their eyes closed.
- It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.
- They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
- Beauty is a sign of intelligence.
- I wonder if it's possible to have a love affair that lasts forever.
- The idea is not to live forever, it is to create something that will.
- An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.
- Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.
- When I was a child I never had a fantasy about having a maid, what I had a fantasy about having was candy. As I matured that fantasy translated itself into 'make money to have candy,' because as you get older, of course, you get more realistic.
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