It's amazing what you can do with an E in A-Level art, a twisted imagination and a chainsaw.
I definitely think about death. And every day your relationship with death changes. And every day I sort of feel like I know it more. I've always thought about it.
Never let money get in the way of an idea
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.
As an artist, you don't stop making art because people are not buying it.
In an artwork you're always looking for artistic decisions, so an ashtray is perfect. An ashtray has got life and death.
I think suicide is the most perfect thing you can do in life.
To be an artist is not about fame; it's about art, which is this intangible thing that has got to have lots of integrity, whereas being famous doesn't really take any integrity. But I think you have to admit that you want to be famous, otherwise you can't be an artist. Art and fame together are like a desire to live forever.
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.
I realised that you couldn't use the tools of yesterday to communicate today's world. Basically, that was the big light that went on in my head.
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.
I think I've always been afraid of painting, really. Right from the beginning. All my paintings are about painting without a painter. Like a kind of mechanical form of painting. Like finding some imaginary computer painter, or a robot who paints.
I think money is important for everyone, because the lack of it is so painful.
Being best is a false goal, you have to measure success on your own terms.
When I used to do abstract paintings at school, like everyone else, the tutor said these would make great curtains. I would always neglect the formal stuff that was going on by using colour, because colour kind of came naturally to me.
So smoking is the perfect way to commit suicide without actually dying. I smoke because it's bad, it's really simple.
Since I was a child, death is definitely something that I think about every day. But I think that everybody does. You try and avoid it, but it's such a big thing that you can't.
I like the confusion you get between science and religion … that’s where belief lies and art as well.
I always feel like the art's there and I just see it, so it's not really a lot of work.
It's ridiculous what I do. I can't believe in it - but I have to.
I love art. It is uplifting.
Art is the closest you can get to immortality, though it's a poor substitute - you're working for people not yet born - and people want it because it is brilliant. It ends up in museums anyway; the rich have to give it back to the people, it's their only option. There are no pockets in a shroud.
I don't see what else you can spend your money on... If you want to own things, art is a pretty good bet.
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.
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.
