The grumpier you are, the more assholes you meet.
BANKSYMy lawyer’s opinion is that the cops might not actually be able to charge me with criminal damage any more – because theoretically my graffiti actually increases the value of property rather than decreasing it. That’s his theory, but then my lawyer also believes wearing novelty cartoon ties is a good look.
More Banksy Quotes
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Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing.
BANKSY -
The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires
BANKSY -
Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice.
BANKSY -
Should # graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It’s way more important than that
BANKSY -
If you feel dirty, insignificant or unloved, then rats are a good role model. They exist without permission, they have no respect for the hierarchy of society, and they have sex 50 times a day.
BANKSY -
Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint.
BANKSY -
It’s a very frustrated feeling you get when the only people with good photos of you work are the police department.
BANKSY -
The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It’s people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.
BANKSY -
You’re mind is working at its best when you’re being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity.
BANKSY -
Nobody ever listened to me until they didn’t know who I was
BANKSY -
Writing graffiti is about the most honest way you can be an artist. It takes no money to do it, you don’t need an education to understand it, and there’s no admission fee.
BANKSY -
Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
BANKSY -
The one thing you can rely on is if you get disturbed halfway through a painting and it looks a bit naff, then someone will preserve that piece, remove it and a few months later it’ll be paraded round Sotheby’s by people wearing white gloves.
BANKSY -
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don’t do that so much anymore.
BANKSY -
Anyone who believes in capital punishment should be shot
BANKSY -
All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars
BANKSY -
I originally set out to try and save the world, but now I’m not sure I like it enough.
BANKSY -
Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
BANKSY -
The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.
BANKSY -
I have a theory that you can make any sentence seem profound by writing the name of a dead philosopher at the end of it.
BANKSY -
Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it’s probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.
BANKSY -
If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you’ve made your own sculpture.
BANKSY -
But there’s no way round it-commercial success is a mark of failure for a graffiti artist. We’re not supposed to be embraced in that way. When you look at how society rewards so many of the wrong people, it’s hard not to view financial reimbursement as a badge of self-serving mediocrity.
BANKSY -
Is graffiti art or vandalism? That word has a lot of negative connotations and it alienates people, so no, I don’t like to use the word ‘art’ at all.
BANKSY -
If it doesn’t matter, get rid of it. If you can’t get rid of it, it matters.
BANKSY -
Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.
BANKSY