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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

People are fond of using military terms to describe what they do. We call it bombing when we go out painting, when of course it’s more like entertaining the troops in a neutral zone, during peacetime in a country without an army.
BANKSY

Army Country Military
I don’t think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it.
BANKSY

Graffiti Should Have Thinking
If you want someone to be ignored then build a life-size bronze statue of them and stick it in the middle of town. It doesn’t matter how great you were, it’ll always take an unfunny drunk with climbing skills to make people notice you.
BANKSY

Climbing Drunk Skills
There are four basic human needs; food, sleep, sex and revenge.
BANKSY

Art Revenge Sex
Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.
BANKSY

Authority People Piece Wall
All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars
BANKSY

Graffiti Levels War
Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint.
BANKSY

Graffiti Hipster Speak
A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.
BANKSY

Children Mother Parenting
I don’t know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public; they forget that invisibility is a superpower.
BANKSY

Details Invisibility People
I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.
BANKSY

Death Life Time
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

Looks People White
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

Artist Self Views
Today’s art has been cancelled due to police activity.
BANKSY

Art Police Today
I don’t know if street art ever really works indoors. If you domesticate an animal, it goes from being wild and free to sterile, fat and sleepy. So maybe the art should stay outside.
BANKSY

Animal Art Free Wild
My 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.
BANKSY

Believe Cartoon Ties
Gaza is often described as ‘the world’s largest open air prison’ because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons – they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day.
BANKSY

Air Cutting Drinking

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Banksy Quotes