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Andy Warhol
64 quotes
“Andy Warhol: I think everybody should like everybody. Gene Swenson: Is that what Pop Art is all about? Andy Warhol: Yes, it's liking things.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in 'What is Pop Art? Answers from 8 Painters', in Art News 62 (November 1963)
“The reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'What is Pop Art? Answers from 8 Painters', Part 1, G. R. Swenson, in Art News 62 (November 1963)
“I think of myself as an American artist: I like it here.. .I feel I represent the U.S. in my art but I'm not a social critic. I just paint those things in my paintings because those things are the things I know best. I'm not trying to criticize the U.S. in any way, not trying to show up any ugliness at all. I'm just a pure artist, I guess. But I can't say if I take myself seriously as an artist. I just hadn't thought about it. I don't know how they consider me in print, though.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Warhol in Andy, My true Story 3, Gretchen Berg, Los Angeles Free Press (17 March 1967); as quoted in Andy Warhol, retrospective, Art and Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457 – 467
“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface; of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Andy, My true Story 3, Gretchen Berg, Los Angeles Free Press (17 March 1967); as quoted in Andy Warhol, retrospective, New York and Boston Museum of modern Art & Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457–67
“In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Catalogue of an exhibition of his art in Stockholm, Sweden (1968)
“Pelé is one of the few who contradicted my theory [...] Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cited in Pelé's New York Times obituary (29 December 2022)
“If an artist can't do anymore, then he should just quit; and an artist ought to be able to change his style without feeling bad. I heard that Lichtenstein said he might not be painting comic strips a year of two from now [1963]. I think that would be so great, to be able to change styles. And I think that's what's going to happen; that's going to be the whole new scene.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We went to see Dr No [first James Bond film, 1962] at Fort-Second Street. It's a fantastic movie, so cool. We walked outside and somebody threw a cherry bomb right in front of us, in this big crowd. And there was blood. I saw blood on people and all over. I felt like I was bleeding all over. I saw in the paper last week that there are more people throwing them - it's just part of the scene - and hurting people. My show in Paris is to be called Death in America. I'll show the Electric-chair pictures and the Dogs in Birmingham and car wrecks and some suicide pictures.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I guess it was the big plane crash picture [why Warhol started his 'Death'-series], the front page of a newspaper: '129 DIED'. I was also painting the Marilyns [the Marylin Monroe portraits, Warhol started after her tragic death in 1962] I realized that everything I was doing must have been Death. It was Christmas or Labor Day - a holiday - and every time that you turned on the radio they said something like '4 millions are going to die'. That started it. But when you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it doesn't really have any effect.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The name [Pop] sounds so awful. Dada must have something to do with Pop. it's so funny, the names are really synonyms. Does anyone know what they're supposed to mean or have to do with, those names? Johns and Rauschenberg, Neo-Dada for all those years, and everyone calling them derivative and unable to transform the things they use, are now called progenitors of Pop. It's funny the way things change. I think John Cage has been very influential, and Merce Cunningham too, I think.. ..History books are being rewritten all the time.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You'd be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall. Specially if the background color matches the drapes.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in (1968), Andy Warhol: Stockholm, Moderna Museet, February–March 1968 (exhib. cat.), Malmö: Sydsvenska Dagbladets, [ISBN]; repr. 1970, Boston: Boston Book and Art, [ISBN]
“(You'd be surprised who'll hang an electric chair in the living room. Especially if the background matches the drapes.)”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Jan Greenberg, Sandra Jordan (2004), Andy Warhol: Prince of Pop, New York: Delacorte, []
“(You wouldn't believe how many people will hang up a picture of an electric chair? especially if it matches the color of their curtains.)”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in et al. (2001), Sylvie Fleury: Identity, Pain, Astral Projection (exhib. cat., Magasin, Grenoble, France, 2001–2002), Paris: RMN (Réunion des musées nationaux) & Dijon: Presses du réel, []
“(You wouldn't believe how many people will hang a picture of an electric chair in their room – especially if the color of the picture matches the curtains.)”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in (2002), Andy Warhol: A Beginner's Guide, London: Hodder & Stoughton, []
“(You wouldn't believe the number of people who hang the electric chair painting in the homes, especially if the colour of the canvas matches the curtains.)”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Marie Deparis (2009), "Mounir Fatmi: Gardons Espoir / Keeping Faith" (bilingual exhibition notice, as a retranslation from the French "On n'imagine pas le nombre de personnes qui accrocheraient chez elles l…
“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface; of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.. .I see everything that way, the surface of things, a kind of mental Braille. I just pass my hands over the surface of things. [1973]”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Warhol in his own words – Untitled Statements ( 1963 – 1987), selected by Neil Printz; as quoted in Andy Warhol, retrospective, Art and Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457 – 467
“Why do people think artists are special? It's just another job.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Philosophy of Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1975, p. 178
“I can never get over when you're on the beach how beautiful the sand looks and the water washes it away and straightens it up and the trees and the grass all look great. I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: "Inside Andy Warhol," by Andy Warhol. Cosmopolitan, 179, Sept. 1975, p. 189.
“It's the place where my prediction from the sixties finally came true: "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, "In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Andy Warhol's Exposures (1979) commenting on the nightclub "Studio 54", and his world famous quote.
“During the 60's, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered. I think that once you see emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again. That's what more or less has happened to me. I don't really know if I was ever capable of love, but after the '60's I never thought in terms of "love" again.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't see anything wrong with being alone, it feels great to me. People make a big thing about personal love. It doesn't have to be such a big thing. The same for living - people make a big thing about that too. But personal living and personal loving are the two things the Eastern-type wise men don't think about.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love every "lib" movement there is, because after the "lib" the things that were always a mystique become understandable and boring, and then nobody has to feel left out if they're not part of what is happening. For instance, single people looking for husbands and wives used to feel left out because the image marriage had in the old days was so wonderful. w:Jane Wyatt and Robert Young. w:Nick and Nora Charles, Ethel and Fred Mertz, Dagwood and Blondie.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've never met a person I couldn't call a beauty.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I really don't care that much about "Beauties." What I really like are Talkers. To me, good talkers are beautiful because good talk is what I love. The word itself shows why I like Talkers better than Beauties, why I tape more than I film. It's not "talkies." Talkers are doing something. Beauties are being something. Which isn't necessarily bad, it's just that I don't know what it is they're being. It's more fun to be with people who are doing things.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In some circles where very heavy people think they have very heavy brains, words like "charming" and "clever" and "pretty" are all put-downs; all the lighter things in life, which are the most important things, are put down.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know a girl who just looks at her face in the medicine cabinet mirror and never looks below her shoulders, and she's four or five hundred pounds but she doesn't see all that, she just sees a beautiful face and therefore she thinks she's a beauty. And therefore, I think she's a beauty, too, because I usually accept people on the basis of their self-images, because their self-images have more to do with the way they think than their objective-images do.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most beautiful thing in Tokyo is McDonald's. The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is McDonald's. The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald's. Peking and Moscow don't have anything beautiful yet.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm confused about who the news belongs to. I always have it in my head that if your name's in the news, then the news should be paying you. Because it's your news and they're taking it and selling it as their product. But then they always say that they're helping you, and that's true too, but still, if people didn't give the news their news, and if everybody kept their news to themselves, the news wouldn't have any news. So I guess you should pay each other. But I haven't figured it out fully yet.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Before I was shot [June, 1968], I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there - I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen to you in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television - you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of "work" because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do. Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery. People are working every minute. The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The President has so much good publicity potential that hasn't been exploited. He should just sit down one day and make a list of all the things that people are embarrassed to do that they shouldn't be embarrassed to do, and then do them all on television.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes you fantasize that people who are really up-there and rich and living it up have something you don't have, that their things must be better than your things because they have more money than you. But they drink the same Cokes and eat the same hot dogs and wear the same ILGWU clothes and see the same TV shows and the same movies. Rich people can't see a sillier version of w:Truth or Consequences, or a scarier version of w:The Exorcist. You can get just as revolted as they can—you can have the same nightmares. All of this is really American.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, "So what." That's one of my favorite things to say. "So what." "My mother didn't love me." So what. "My husband won't ball me." So what. "I'm a success but I'm still alone." So what. I don't know how I made it through all the years before I learned how to do that trick. It took a long time for me to learn it, but once you do, you never forget.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I really do live for the future, because when I'm eating a box of candy, I can't wait to taste the last piece. I don't even taste any of the other pieces, I just want to finish and throw the box away and not have to have it on my mind any more. I would rather either have it now or know I'll never have it so I don't have to think about it. That's why some days I wish I were very very old-looking so I wouldn't have to think about getting old-looking.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't believe in it, because you're not around to know that it's happened. I can't say anything about it because I'm not prepared for it.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I really believe in empty spaces, although, as an artist, I make a lot of junk. Empty space is never-wasted space. Wasted space is any space that has art in it. An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but that he, for some reason, thinks it would be a good idea to give them.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I look at things, I always see the space they occupy. I always want the space to reappear, to make a comeback, because it's lost space when there's something in it. If I see a chair in a beautiful space, no matter how beautiful the chair is, it can never be as beautiful to me as the plain space.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Free countries are great, because you can actually sit in somebody else's space for a while and pretend you're a part of it. You can sit in the Plaza Hotel and you don't even have to live there. You can just sit and watch the people go by.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Somebody said that Bertolt Brecht [German socialist writer of political theater] wanted everybody to think alike. I want everybody to think alike. But Brecht wanted to do it through Communism, in a way. Russia is doing it under government. It's happening here [in America] all by itself without being under a strict government; so if it's working without trying, why can't it work without being Communist? Everybody looks alike and acts alike, and we're getting more and more that way.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Business art is the step that comes after Art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. After I did the thing called 'art' or whatever it's called, I went into business art. I wanted to be an Art Businessman or a Business Artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. During the hippies era people put down the idea of business – they'd say 'Money is bad', and 'Working is bad', but making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I have to think about it, I know the picture is wrong. And sizing is a form of thinking and coloring is too. My instinct about painting says, 'If you don’t think about it, it's right'. As soon as you have to decide and choose, it's wrong. And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets. Some people, they paint abstract, so they sit there thinking about it because their thinking makes them feel they're doing something. But my thinking never makes me feel I'm doing anything.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A lot of people thought it was me everyone at the 'Factory' was hanging around, that I was some kind of big attraction that everyone came to see, but that's absolutely backward: it was me who was hanging around everyone else. I just paid the rent, and the crowds came simply because the door was open. People weren't particularly interested in seeing me; they were interested in seeing each other. They came to see who came.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: POPism (1980); as quoted in Warhol in his own words – Untitled Statements ( 1963 – 1987), selected by Neil Printz, in Andy Warhol, retrospective, Art and Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457 – 467
“The Pop artists did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split second – comics, picnic tables, men's trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles – all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all. (1960's)”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: POPism (1980); as quoted in Warhol in his own words – Untitled Statements ( 1963 – 1987), selected by Neil Printz, as quoted in Andy Warhol, retrospective, Art and Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457 – 467
“Edward Lucie-Smith: Would you like to see your pictures on as many walls as possible, then? Andy Warhol: Uh, no, I like them in closets.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Edward Lucie-Smith: Why is it more of a pleasure to do 30 or 40 pictures than to do just one? Andy Warhol: Then I can, uh, listen to my soundabout which looks just like the thing that I'm wearing now, and you can listen to opera and stuff like that. Edward Lucie-Smith: Does that mean you don't have to think when you're painting? Andy Warhol: No, you can listen to really good music. Edward Lucie-Smith: So, what, painting is an excuse to listen to really good music? Andy Warhol: Oh, yeah.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Edward Lucie-Smith: What do you think is the characteristic of a really nice person? Some people you obviously do like more than others. Andy Warhol: Ummm, well, if they talk a lot. Edward Lucie-Smith: What, and don't make you talk? Andy Warhol: Yeah, yes, that's a really nice person. Edward Lucie-Smith: Thank you, Andy.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I still care about people but it would be so much easier not to care. I don't want to get to close: I don't like to touch things, that's why my work is so distant from myself [Nicolas Love, April 1987]”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Warhol in his own words – Untitled Statements ( 1963 – 1987), selected by Neil Printz, in Andy Warhol, retrospective, Art and Bullfinch Press / Little Brown, 1989, pp. 457 – 467
“Sex is nostalgia for sex.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source