Damien Hirst quotes

Damien Hirst is an English sculptor and conceptual artist, widely recognized for his provocative and controversial works. His art often explores themes of life, death, and the fragility of existence, using unconventional materials such as preserved animals and pharmaceuticals. He has become one of the most prominent figures of the Young British Artists movement and a leading force in contemporary art. Here are 66 of his quotes:

I just wanted to find out where the boundaries were. So far I've found there aren't any. I just wanted to be stopped, and no one will stop me.

Damien Hirst

The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel.

Damien Hirst

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

Damien Hirst

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

Damien Hirst

It's amazing what you can do with an E in A-level art, twisted imagination and a chainsaw.

Damien Hirst

I was with this guy who was a plasterer, and at lunchtime he was eating a stuffed heart... I was thinking, "I'm not like these guys. I'm an artist." And I saw a bee come over to some flowers and get all the pollen out. I was looking and thinking, "How does it do that?" And then the guy who was eating the stuffed heart said, "How does that bee do that?"

Damien Hirst

Great art – or good art – is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different. There's boring conceptual art and there's boring traditional art. Great art is if you can't stop thinking about it, then it becomes a memory.

Damien Hirst

Sometimes when you're drunk you can see better.

Damien Hirst

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

Damien Hirst

It's such a crass idea - you're either in love or out of love.

Damien Hirst

Immortality is really desirable, I guess. In terms of images, anyway.

Damien Hirst

I think an ashtray is the most fantastically real thing.

Damien Hirst

I always ignore money.

Damien Hirst

Artists are like everybody else.

Damien Hirst

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

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.

Damien Hirst

I started taking cocaine and drink ... I turned into a babbling fucking wreck.

Damien Hirst

It's not a coincidence that governments use art on coins and notes. They do this to help us believe in money. Without art, it's hard for us to believe in anything.

Damien Hirst

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

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

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.

Damien Hirst

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