I don’t believe in anything. I’m just here for the violence.
BANKSYIt’s impossible to predict which paintings will last and which won’t. In New Orleans I painted on a dilapidated shop in a street littered with abandoned cars and rotting mattresses, then two hours later the piece was gone. It turned out I’d picked the side of a crack house and the proprietor didn’t like the attention.
More Banksy Quotes
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I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don’t do that so much anymore.
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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.
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In the future, everybody will be anonymous for 15 minutes.
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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.
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The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.
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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.
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I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website – but on the internet, people only look at pictures of kittens.
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Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can’t even finish my second apple pie.
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At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity – the lies, the corruption, the abuse.
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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.
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I just wanna make the world a better-looking place. If you don’t like it, you can paint over it!
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I love the way capitalism finds a place – even for its enemies.
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A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.
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Should # graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It’s way more important than that
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If it doesn’t matter, get rid of it. If you can’t get rid of it, it matters.
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I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in – like peace and justice and freedom.
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If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel.
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Stencils are good for two reasons; one – they’re quick; two – they annoy idiots.
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Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.
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If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.
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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.
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It’s a very frustrated feeling you get when the only people with good photos of you work are the police department.
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There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place.
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The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. 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.
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Graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.
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I’d been painting rats for three years before someone said ‘that’s clever it’s an anagram of art’ and I had to pretend I’d known that all along.
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