Andy Warhol Quotes (133 quotes, page 2)

“I’m really afraid to feel happy because it never lasts”

Andy Warhol

Feeling , Happiness

“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. the machinery is always going. even when you sleep”

Andy Warhol book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

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

Thinking , Sleep

“I never think that people die. They just go to department stores.”

Andy Warhol

People , Thinking

“When I look around today, the biggest anachronism I see is pregnancy. I just can't believe that people are still pregnant.”

Andy Warhol book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Source: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

People

“Making money is art. And working is art. And good business is the best art.”

Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 92
Context: 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.

Motivational , Business , Money , Art

“I always run into strong women who are looking for weak men to dominate them.”

Andy Warhol

Women , Men , Strong

“Since people are going to be living longer and getting older, they'll just have to learn how to be babies longer.”

Andy Warhol

People , Learning , Baby

“I think pot should be legal. I don’t smoke it, but I like the smell of it.”

Andy Warhol

Thinking

“I don't want to be smart, because being smart makes you depressed.”

Andy Warhol

“When you're interested in somebody, and you think they might be interested in you, you should point out all your beauty problems and defects right away, rather than take a chance they won't notice them... On the other hand, say you have a purely temporary beauty problem—a new pimple, lackluster hair, no-sleep eyes, five extra pounds around the middle. Still, whatever it is, you should point it out... If you don't point out these things they might think that your temporary beauty problem is a permanent beauty problem... If they really do like you for yourself, they'll be willing to use their imagination to think of what you must look like without your temporary beauty problem.”

Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 4: Beauty

Beauty , Imagination , Problem , Thinking

“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

Quote in 'What is Pop Art? Answers from 8 Painters', in 'Art News' 62, November 1963
1963 - 1967

Art , Thinking

“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

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

People

“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

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

Money , People , Dogs , Drink

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 26

Way , Communication , Thinking

“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”

Andy Warhol

1975 - 1987

Art , Quotes

“I've never met a person I couldn't call a beauty.”

Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 4: Beauty

Beauty , Personality

“You'd be surprised who'll hang an electric chair in the living room. Especially if the background matches the drapes.”

Andy Warhol

As quoted in Moderna Museet (1968), Andy Warhol: Stockholm, Moderna Museet, February–March 1968 (exhib. cat.), Malmö: Sydsvenska Dagbladets, [ISBN]; repr. 1970, Boston: Boston Book and Art, [ISBN] As quoted in Mike Wrenn (1991), Andy Warhol: In His Own Words, London & New York: Omnibus Press [Music Sales Group], ISBN 0-7119-2400-7 [ISBN 978-0-7119-2400-0] As quoted in Isabel Kühl (2007), Andy Warhol: Living Art, Munich & New York: Prestel, ISBN 978-3-7913-3814-9 [ISBN 3-7913-3814-5]
1968 - 1974, Electric chair quote
Variant: 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.

“It's hard to be creative and it's also hard not to think what you do is creative or hard not to be called creative because everybody is always talking about that and individuality. Everybody's always creative. And it is so funny when you say things aren't, like the shoe I would draw for an advertisement was called a 'creation', but the drawing of it was not... There are millions of actors. They're all pretty good. And how many painters are there? Millions of painters and all pretty good. How can you say one style is better then another. You ought to be able to be an Abstract-expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling you're given up something.”

Andy Warhol

Source: 1963 - 1967, What Is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part 1 (1963), pp. 116-19

Shoe , Feeling , Thinking , Drawing

“I started those [the 'Elisabeth Taylor' pictures, Warhol made from a publicity photo of her 1960 film 'BUtterfield 8 a long time ago when she was so sick and everybody said she was going to die [but she recovered]. Now I'm doing them all over, putting bright colors on her lips and eyes. My next series will be pornographic pictures, they will look blank; when you turn on the black lights, then you will see them - big breast and... If a cop came in, then you could just flick out the lights or turn to the regular lights. How could you say that was pornography?... Segal did a sculpture of two people making love, but he cut it all up, I guess because he thought it was too pornographic to be art... The thing I like about it is that it makes you forget about style and that sort of things; style isn't really important.”

Andy Warhol

Source: 1963 - 1967, What Is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part 1 (1963), pp. 116-19

Love , People , Making love , Art

“Apparently, most people love watching the same basic thing [actions shows on TV], as long as the details are different. But I'm just the opposite: if I'm going to sit and watch the same thing I saw the night before, I don't want it to be essentially the same – I want it to be exactly the same. Because the more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel.”

Andy Warhol

1960's
undated quotes
Source: 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

Love , People , Feeling , Night

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 10: Atmosphere

People , Art , Idea , Thinking

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 4: Beauty

Beauty

“Edward 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

1975 - 1987, BBC interview (1981)

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 3: Senility

Love , Marriage , People , Feeling

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 3: Senility

Love , Men , People , Feeling

“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

1963 - 1967
Source: 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

Painting

“At the times in my life when I was feeling the most gregarious and looking for bosom friendships, I couldn't find any takers so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the most like not being alone. The moment I decided I'd rather be alone and not have anyone telling me their problems, everybody I'd never even seen before in my life started running after me to tell me things I'd just decided I didn't think it was a good idea to hear about. As soon as I became a loner in my own mind, that's when I got what you might call a "following."”

Andy Warhol

As soon as you stop wanting something you get it. I've found that to be absolutely axiomatic.
Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 1: Puberty

Life , Friendship , Feeling , Idea

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 5: Fame

People , Help

“I thought that young people had more problems than old people, and I hoped I could last until I was older so I wouldn't have all those problems. Then I looked around and saw that everybody who looked young had young problems and that everybody who looked old had old problems. The "old" problems to me looked easier to take than the "young" problems. So I decided to go gray so nobody would know now old I was and I would look younger to them than how old they thought I was. I would gain a lot by going gray: (1) I would have old problems, which were easier to take than young problems, (2) everyone would be impressed by how young I looked, and (3) I would be relieved of the responsibility of acting young—I could occasionally lapse into eccentricity or senility and no one would think anything of it because of my gray hair. When you've got gray hair, every move you make seems "young" and "spry," instead of just being normally active. It's like you're getting a new talent. So I dyed my hair gray when I was about twenty-three or twenty-four.”

Andy Warhol

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

People , Hope , Problem , Thinking

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 4: Beauty

Love , People , Beauty

“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.”

Andy Warhol

1973
1968 - 1974, Electric chair quote
Source: 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

Way , Painting

“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

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 le tableau de la chaise électrique, surtout si les coloris de la toile s'harmonisent avec les rideaux.")
1968 - 1974, Electric chair quote

People , Home , Painting

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 10: Atmosphere

Beauty

“Edward 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 Smith: What, and don't make you talk?
Andy Warhol: Yeah, yes, that's a really nice person.
Edward Smith: Thank you, Andy.”

Andy Warhol

1975 - 1987, BBC interview (1981)

People , Thinking , Personality

“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

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
1963 - 1967

Art , Way , Feeling , Thinking

“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

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

Life , People , Way , Feeling

“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

As quoted in Geoff Nicholson (2002), Andy Warhol: A Beginner's Guide, London: Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-84620-8 [ISBN 978-0-340-84620-9]
1968 - 1974, Electric chair quote
Variant: (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.)

People , Color

“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

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

Thinking , Waiting , Future , Box

“Why do people think artists are special? It's just another job.”

Andy Warhol

1975 - 1987
Source: Philosophy of Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1975, p. 178

People , Thinking

“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

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

Money , Drink , Thinking , Country

“What I was actually trying to do in my early movies was show how people can meet other people and what they can do and what they can say to each other. That was the whole idea: two people getting acquainted. And then when you saw it and you saw the sheer simplicity of it, you learned what it was all about. Those movies showed you how some people act and react with other people. They were like actual sociological 'For instance's. They were like documentaries, and if you thought it could apply to you, it was an example, and if it didn't apply to you, at least it was a documentary, it could apply to somebody you knew and it could clear up some questions you had about them.”

Andy Warhol

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 3: Senility

People , Idea , Question , Learning

“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”

Andy Warhol

Nicolas Love, April 1987
1975 - 1987, BBC interview (1981)
Source: 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

Love , People , Distant

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 149

People , Color , Feeling , Thinking

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 4: Beauty

People , Beauty , Way , Girl

“I think somebody should be able to do all my paintings for me.”

Andy Warhol

As quoted in Pop Art, an Critical History, Steven Henry Madoff, Madoff, University of California Press, Berkeley 1997, p. 104
undated quotes

Thinking , Painting

“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

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 10: Atmosphere

People , Parting , Country

“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.”

Andy Warhol

I'll show the 'Electric-chair' pictures and the Dogs in Birmingham and car wrecks and some suicide pictures.
Source: 1963 - 1967, What Is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part 1 (1963), pp. 116-19

Death , People , Dogs , Cars

“Edward 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 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 Smith: So, what, painting is an excuse to listen to really good music?
Andy Warhol: Oh, yeah.”

Andy Warhol

1975 - 1987, BBC interview (1981)

Pleasure , Music , Thinking , Painting

“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.”

Andy Warhol

1960's
1975 - 1987

Men

“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

Source: 1963 - 1967, What Is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part 1 (1963), pp. 116-19