black
grey
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If it doesn’t matter, get rid of it. If you can’t get rid of it, it matters.

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

Looks People White
I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There’s no gallery show or book or film. It’s pointless. Which hopefully means something.
BANKSY

Art Book Mean
You can win the rat race but you’re still a rat.
BANKSY

Inspirational Race Winning
I just wanna make the world a better-looking place. If you don’t like it, you can paint over it!
BANKSY

Look Over Paint World
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don’t do that so much anymore.
BANKSY

Art Encourage People Used
People either love me or they hate me, or they don’t really care.
BANKSY

Care Hate People
Should #‎ graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It’s way more important than that
BANKSY

Art Graffiti Important
The grumpier you are, the more assholes you meet.
BANKSY

Graffiti Negative People
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
You don’t need planning permission to build castles in the sky
BANKSY

Castles Needs Sky
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
The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.
BANKSY

Art Holy Grail People
It’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.
BANKSY

Car New Orleans Two
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

Art Graffiti People
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.
BANKSY

Art Clever Years
Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a f**king sharp knife to it.
BANKSY

Inspirational Inspiring Life
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

Art Graffiti Littles
Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint.
BANKSY

Graffiti Hipster Speak
Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can’t even finish my second apple pie.
BANKSY

Apples Pie Sick
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.
BANKSY

Believe Justice Thinking
I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.
BANKSY

Alive Art Painting
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

Dirty Models Role Sex
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.
BANKSY

Art Lying People
In the future, everybody will be anonymous for 15 minutes.
BANKSY

Anonymous Everybody Future Minute
I tell myself I use art to promote dissent, but maybe I am just using dissent to promote my art. I plead not guilty to selling out. But I plead it from a bigger house than I used to live in.
BANKSY

Art Guilty House
It’s a very frustrated feeling you get when the only people with good photos of you work are the police department.
BANKSY

Feelings People Police
Become good at cheating and you never need to become good at anything else.
BANKSY

Art Cheating Deep Thought

If it doesn’t matter, get rid of it. If you can’t get rid of it, it matters.

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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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Popular Authors

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