Andy Warhol Quotes & Sayings

I'll bet there are a lot of artists that nobody hears about who just make more money than anybody. The people that do all the sculptures and paintings for big building construction. We never hear about them, but they make more money than anybody. — Andy Warhol

My style was always to spread out rather than to move up. — Andy Warhol

Business Art is the step that comes after Art. — Andy Warhol

If I had gone ahead and died ten years ago, I'd probably be a cult figure today. — Andy Warhol

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

Years later, I figured out why he (Ivan Karp) was such a successful art dealer-this may sound strange, but I believe it was because art was his second love. He seemed to love literature more, and he put the serious side of his nature into that ... Some people are even better at their second love than their first, maybe because when they care too much, it freezes them, but knowing there's something they'd rather be doing gives them a certain freedom. — Andy Warhol

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

It must be hard to be a model, because you'd want to be like the photograph of you, and you can't ever look that way. — Andy Warhol

When you work with people who misunderstand you, instead of getting transmissions, you get transmutations, and that's much more interesting in the long run. — Andy Warhol

The wide multitude wanted to seem contrarian. It meant that this type of nonconformism had to be mass-produced. — Andy Warhol

I want to be a machine. — 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

The nicer I am, the more people think I'm lying. — Andy Warhol

Those who talk about individuality the most are the ones who most object to deviation, and in a few years it may be the other way around. Some day everybody will just think what they want to think, and then everybody will probably be thinking alike; that seems to be what is happening. — Andy Warhol

Now and then, someone would accuse me of being evil - of letting people destroy themselves while I watched, just so I could film them and tape-record them. But I didn't think of myself as evil - just realistic. — Andy Warhol

The mystery was gone but the amazement was just starting. — Andy Warhol

I don't believe people die. They just go uptown. To Bloomingdales. They just take longer to get back. — Andy Warhol

Publicity is like eating peanuts. Once you start you can't stop. — Andy Warhol

Traveling makes time go fast. So maybe traveling in space will give people time. — Andy Warhol

People are always so boring when they band together. You have to be alone to develop all the idiosyncrasies that make a person interesting. — Andy Warhol

I broke something and realized I should break something once a week to remind me how fragile life is. — Andy Warhol

And your own life while it's happening to you never has any atmosphere until it's a memory. — Andy Warhol

I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumours to my dogs. — Andy Warhol

The teachers liked me. In grade school, they make you copy pictures from books. I think the first one was Robert Louis Stevenson. — Andy Warhol

I remembered I had tickets that Susan Blond gave me to the rock kid who ate the heads off bats, Ozzy Osbourne,... — Andy Warhol

History books are being re-written all the time — Andy Warhol

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

The interviewer should just tell me the words he wants me to say and I'll repeat them after him. I think that would be so great because I'm so empty I just can't think of anything to say. — Andy Warhol

I just do art because I'm ugly and there's nothing else for me to do. — Andy Warhol

I always hear myself saying, 'She's a beauty!' or 'He's a beauty!' or 'What a beauty!' but I never know what I'm talking about. — Andy Warhol

I love it when you ask actors, 'What are you Doing now?' and they say 'I'm between roles'. To be living 'life between roles' that's my favorite — Andy Warhol

I wish I hadn't made so many images. — Andy Warhol

I still care about people but it would be so much easier not to care. I don't want to get too close; I don't like to touch things ... — Andy Warhol

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

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. — Andy Warhol

Beauty is a sign of intelligence. — Andy Warhol

Art is what you can get away with. — Andy Warhol

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

Paintings are too hard. The things I want to show are mechanical. Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine, wouldn't you? — Andy Warhol

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art — Andy Warhol

I really like to work a lot. It makes time go by fast. — Andy Warhol

Kiss me with your eyes. — Andy Warhol

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

Sociological critics are waste makers. — Andy Warhol

Sports figures are to the '70s what movie stars were to the '60s. — 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

Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. — Andy Warhol

Success is when the checks don't bounce. — Andy Warhol

Everyone needs a fantasy. — Andy Warhol

I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is 'In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.' — Andy Warhol

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. — Andy Warhol

If there's ever a problem, I film it and it's no longer a problem. It's a film. — Andy Warhol

Money has a certain kind of amnesty. — Andy Warhol

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

I thought that young people had more problems than old people ... Then I looked around and saw that everybody who looked young had young problems and that everybody who looked old had old problems. — Andy Warhol

Most people in America think Art is a man's name. — Andy Warhol

When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums. — Andy Warhol

People should fall in love with their eyes closed. — Andy Warhol

I wonder if it's possible to have a love affair that lasts forever. — Andy Warhol

I get so tired of painting. I've been trying to give it up all the time, if we could just make a living out of movies or the newspaper business or something. It's so boring, painting the same picture over and over. — Andy Warhol

If you can convince yourself that you look fabulous, you can save yourself the trouble of primping. — Andy Warhol

Everything is beautiful. Pop is everything. — Andy Warhol

I wake up every morning. I open my eyes and think: here we go again. — Andy Warhol

Nutty people are always writing me. I always think I must be on some nutty mailing list. — Andy Warhol

You have to do stuff that average people don't understand because those are the only good things. — Andy Warhol

I'd rather do new stuff. The old stuff is better to talk about than to see. It always sounds better than it really is. — Andy Warhol

I will go to the Opening of Anything, including a Toilet Seat — Andy Warhol

I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want. — Andy Warhol

When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something. — 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

I never fall apart, because I never fall together. — Andy Warhol

I've been invited to the White House about five times. I think the greatest thing would be if they actually invited everybody to the White House every night ... they'd just take about 500 people a night. Everybody would just love this country because it's so thrilling to go there. It really is. — Andy Warhol

I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years, I guess, the same thing over and over again. — Andy Warhol

I never think that people die. They just go to department stores. — Andy Warhol

I was trying to think the other day about what you do now in America if you want to be successful. Before, you were dependable and wore a good suit. Looking around, I guess that today you have to do all the same things but not wear a good suit. I guess that's all it is. Think rich. Look poor. — Andy Warhol

When I did my self-portrait, I left all the pimples out because you always should. Pimples are a temporary condition and they don't have anything to do with what you really look like. Always omit the blemishes - they're not part of the good picture you want. — Andy Warhol

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

I always notice flowers. — Andy Warhol

Fashion is more art than art is — Andy Warhol

I'm a deeply superficial person. — Andy Warhol

Employees make the best dates. You don't have to pick them up and they're always tax-deductible. — Andy Warhol

I met someone on the street who said wasn't it great that we're going to have a movie star for president, that it was so Pop, and (laughs) when you think about it like that, it is great, it's so American. — Andy Warhol

Even beauties can be unattractive. If you catch a beauty in the wrong light at the right time, forget it. I believe in low lights and trick mirrors. I believe in plastic surgery. — Andy Warhol

Good business is the best art of all. — Andy Warhol

I think the first photograph I did was a ballplayer. It was a way of showing action or something. — Andy Warhol

If you wear a wig, everybody notices. But if you then dye the wig, people notice the dye. — Andy Warhol

The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting — Andy Warhol

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

I want to die with my blue jeans on. — Andy Warhol

Security breeds stagnation. — Andy Warhol

Don't think about making art ... — Andy Warhol

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 strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like you're watching television
you don't feel anything. — Andy Warhol

You can be just as faithful to a place or a thing as you can to a person. A place can really make your heart skip a beat, especially if you have to take a plane to get there. — Andy Warhol

I like to work when I'm not working - do something that may not be considered work, but to me it's work. Getting exercise by going to the grocery store. — Andy Warhol

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

Wasting money puts you in a real party mood. — Andy Warhol

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. — Andy Warhol

I really hate heights. I always like to live on the first floor. — Andy Warhol

...that's when I realized that Bianca doesn't really take drugs - just a few poppers and maybe some coke once in a while but otherwise she's not on drugs, she's normal. — Andy Warhol

My ideal city would be one long main street with no cross streets or side streets to jam up traffic. Just a long one-way street. — Andy Warhol