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.
BANKSYToday’s art has been cancelled due to police activity.
More Banksy 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 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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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.
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Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.
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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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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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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.
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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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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 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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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.
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A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.
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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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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.
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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.
BANKSY