“It seems hard for the American people to believe that anything could be more exciting than the times themselves. What we read daily and view on the TV has thrust imagined forms into the shadow. We are staggeringly rich in facts, in things, and perhaps, like the nouveau riche of other ages, we want our wealth faithfully reproduced by the artist.”

1990s, Farewell speech (1999)

Scotland in the World Forum (February 4, 2008), Church of Scotland (May 25, 2009)

Interview with Paul Joyce, New York, (September 1986) quoted in Hockney on Photography, ed. Wendy Brown (1988)
1980s

Quoted in: Ingo F. Walther (1996), Picasso, p. 67.
Attributed from posthumous publications

All Falls Down
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

In the World.
Afterthoughts (1931)

"Would you like to see a little of it?" said the Mock Turtle. (3 April 2010)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2010
Context: Could anything be more inimical to art than a fear of emotion, or a fear of "excessive" emotion, or a reluctance to express emotion around others? No, of course not. Art can even best the weights of utter fucking ignorance and totalitarian repression, but it cannot survive emotional constipation.
I want a T-shirt that says, "Art is Emo." We live in an age where people are more apt to believe a thing if they read it on a T-shirt.

Source: Selected Stories

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)