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Andy Warhol Quotes

Andy Warhol was an American artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans and Marilyn Diptych , the experimental film Chelsea Girls , and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable .

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Warhol initially pursued a successful career as a commercial illustrator. After exhibiting his work in several galleries in the late 1950s, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist. His New York studio, The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons. He promoted a collection of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and is credited with inspiring the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame." In the late 1960s, he managed and produced the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founded Interview magazine. He authored numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. He lived openly as a gay man before the gay liberation movement. After gallbladder surgery, Warhol died of cardiac arrhythmia in February 1987 at the age of 58.

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city of Pittsburgh, which holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$105 million for a 1963 canvas titled Silver Car Crash ; his works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold. A 2009 article in The Economist described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market". Wikipedia  

✵ 6. August 1928 – 22. February 1987
Andy Warhol photo

Works

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol: 133 quotes15 likes

Famous Andy Warhol Quotes

“Art is what you can get away with.”

Andy Warhol

“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

Andy Warhol book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 7: Time
Source: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“Everything has it's beauty but not everyone sees it.”

Andy Warhol

“I never fall apart, because I never fall together.”

Andy Warhol

“After being alive, the next hardest work is having sex. Of course, for some people it isn't work because they need the exercise and they've got the energy for the sex and the sex gives them even more energy. Some people get energy from sex and some people lose energy from sex. I have found that it's too much work. But if you have the time for it, and if you need that exercise—then you should do it. But you could really save yourself a lot of trouble either way by first figuring out whether you're an energy-getter or an energy-loser. As I said, I'm an energy-loser. But I can understand it when I see people running around trying to get some.”

Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 6: Work

Andy Warhol Quotes about people

“People need to be made more aware of the need to work at learning how to live because life is so quick and sometimes it goes away too quickly.”

Andy Warhol

“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 book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 7: Time
Source: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“Most people in America think Art is a man's name.”

Andy Warhol

“When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can't make them change if they don't want to, just like when they do want to, you can't stop them.”

Andy Warhol

Source: Andy Warhol in His Own Words

Andy Warhol Quotes about thinking

“I think everybody should be nice to everybody.”

Andy Warhol

Variant: I think everybody should like everybody.

“An artist is someone 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

“During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered.”

Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 1: Puberty
Context: 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.

“The nicer I am, the more people think I'm lying.”

Andy Warhol

“I think it would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor's finger.”

Andy Warhol book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Source: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol: Trending quotes

“I don't know where the artificial stops and the real starts.”

Andy Warhol

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 8: Death

Andy Warhol Quotes

Andy Warhol quote: “Kiss me with your eyes.”

“Kiss me with your eyes.”

Andy Warhol

“As soon as you stop wanting something, you get it.”

Andy Warhol

“The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting”

Andy Warhol

Variant: The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting.

“Beauty is a sign of intelligence.”

Andy Warhol

“An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.”

Andy Warhol

Source: Andy Warhol, Thirty Are Better Than One

“Everybody must have a fantasy.”

Andy Warhol book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Source: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.”

Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 7: Time
Context: Sometimes you're invited to a big ball and for months you think about how glamorous and exciting it's going to be. Then you fly to Europe and you go to the ball and when you think back on it a couple of months later what you remember is maybe the car ride to the ball, you can't remember the ball at all. Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life. I should have been dreaming for months about the car ride to the ball and getting dressed for the car ride, and buying my ticket to Europe so I could take the car ride. Then, who knows, maybe I could have remembered the ball.

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

Andy Warhol

“Every song has a memory; every song has the ability to make or break your heart, shut down the heart, and open the eyes. But I’m afraid if you look at a thing long enough; it loses all of its meaning”

Andy Warhol

“I like to be the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place. Being the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place is worth it because something interesting always happens.”

Andy Warhol

“I like boring things.”

Andy Warhol

“In the future everyone will have their fifteen minutes of fame”

Andy Warhol

When asked about this quote, he would corrupt it intentionally, including:
1968 - 1974

“I am a deeply superficial person.”

Andy Warhol

“Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.”

Andy Warhol

“The mystery was gone but the amazement was just starting.”

Andy Warhol

“Everyone winds up kissing the wrong person goodnight.”

Andy Warhol

Variant: Everybody winds up kissing the wrong person goodnight.

“If everyone isn't beautiful, then no one is.”

Andy Warhol

“People should fall in love with their eyes closed. Just close your eyes. Don’t look and it’s magic”

Andy Warhol

Variant: People should fall in love with their eyes closed.

“Fantasy love is much better than Reality Love.”

Andy Warhol

“I'm the type who'd be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn't going to. I'm the type who'd like to sit home and watch every party that I'm invited to on a monitor in my bedroom.”

Andy Warhol

“I believe in low lights and trick mirrors.”

Andy Warhol

“James Dean was the damaged but beautiful soul of our time.”

Andy Warhol

“You have to be willing to get happy about nothing.”

Andy Warhol

“There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you've got your sound… We're musical primitives.”

Andy Warhol

“Everybody has a different idea of love. One girl I know said, "I knew he loved me when de didn't come in my mouth.”

Andy Warhol book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Source: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“People's fantasies are what give them problems. If you didn't have fantasies you wouldn't have problems because you'd just take whatever was there.”

Andy Warhol

“Actually, I jade very quickly. Once is usually enough. Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.”

Andy Warhol

“Remember, they've never seen you before in their life.”

Andy Warhol

“I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.”

Andy Warhol

“Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone’s got to take care of all your details.”

Andy Warhol

“Sex is the biggest nothing of all time.”

Andy Warhol

“It's the movies that have been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.”

Andy Warhol

“I never wanted to be a painter; I wanted to be a tap dancer.”

Andy Warhol

“The world fascinates me.”

Andy Warhol

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