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.
BANKSYNobody ever listened to me until they didn’t know who I was
More Banksy Quotes
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People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish… but that’s only if it’s done properly.
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One Original Thought is worth 1000 Meaningless Quotes.
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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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If you don’t own a train company then you go and paint on one instead… it all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something… that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it.
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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.
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I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.
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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.
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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.
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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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Graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.
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You can win the rat race but you’re still a rat.
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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.
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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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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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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