Saatchi Quotes & Sayings

If I stop being on good behaviour for a moment, my dark little secret is that I don't actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art and simply cannot tell a good artist from a weak one, until the artist has enjoyed the validation of others - a received pronunciation. — Charles Saatchi

Poetry can't cure cancer, but it can save your life until you die. — Maurice Saatchi

My mother was very protective of her four boys. — Maurice Saatchi

Advertising at its worst will be killed by the Internet. And rightly so. — Maurice Saatchi

I liked working in advertising, but don't believe my taste in art, such as it is, was entirely formed by TV commercials. And I don't feel especially conflicted enjoying a Mantegna one day, a Carl Andre the next day and a brash student work the next. — Charles Saatchi

My aim in life isn't so much the pursuit of happiness as the happiness of pursuit. — Charles Saatchi

Be the Worst You Can Be: Life's Too Long for Patience and Virtue — Charles Saatchi

Sibling relationships are complicated. All family relationships are. Look at Hamlet. — Maurice Saatchi

The Tories win elections when they lead on economic competence. — Maurice Saatchi

The art critics on some of Britain's newspapers could as easily have been assigned gardening or travel, and been cheerfully employed for life. — Charles Saatchi

Politics is not a world for the squeamish or fainthearted. — Maurice Saatchi

The essence of parenthood is to make children think that they are the most handsome, intelligent, brilliant person in the world. — Maurice Saatchi

Human nature is not amenable to prediction based on the trends or tendencies prevailing at the time. It is amenable to startling creativity of the kind practiced by great artists, directors, writers, musicians, actors, who know how to touch a chord in humans everywhere. — Maurice Saatchi

I have spent too long being able to manipulate the answers I want from market research to rely upon its findings any more than I do weather forecasts. — Charles Saatchi

Artists need a lot of collectors, all kinds of collectors, buying their art. — Charles Saatchi

My dark little secret is that I don't actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art. — Charles Saatchi

I spoil my children rotten and hope to leave them enough so they can do the same to theirs. — Charles Saatchi

I'm instinctively a Conservative. — Maurice Saatchi

It's obvious nonsense, but it makes nice people feel good about themselves to do their bit for the planet. It's vanity of a grotesque kind to believe that mankind, and our 'carbon footprint', has more impact on the future of Earth than Nature, which bends our planet to its will, as it sees fit. — Charles Saatchi

I've heard that almost all the people crowding around the big art openings barely look at the work on display and are just there to hobnob. Nothing wrong with that, except that none of them ever come back to look at the art - but they will tell everyone, and actually believe, that they have seen the exhibition. — Charles Saatchi

Advertising must respect the intelligence of its audience and if it does not prompt them to think, it will be instantly dismissed. — Maurice Saatchi

When a company owns one precise thought in the consumer's mind, it sets the context for everything and there should be no distinction between brand, product, service and experience. — Maurice Saatchi

Simplicity is the outcome of technical subtlety. It is the goal, not the starting point. — Maurice Saatchi

When a critic knows what she or he is looking at and writes revealingly about it, it's sublime. — Charles Saatchi

Some people in the art world bemoan the hedge fund millionaires spending freely to acquire ostentatious displays of wealth and coolth for their giddily chic designer duplexes. Others bemoan art being treated as a commodity. But most of the bemoaning is because the art world is stuffed full of bemoaners, bemoaning about everything. — Charles Saatchi

I have never cared enough about money to worry about spending it, and have been fortunate to make enough to be spoiled rotten. — Charles Saatchi

America was born out of a desire for self-determination, a longing for the human dignity that only independence can bring. — Maurice Saatchi

The most abiding memory of visiting Lucian Freud's studio were his eyes, with the gimlet gaze of a Hooded Falcon. But he made for very relaxing company, quick to be amused at the world and his own peccadilloes. He enjoyed the seedy squalor of his rooms in a posh house in the most desirable part of Holland Park, and living up to his persona as an oddball bohemian. — Charles Saatchi

I regularly find myself waking up to art I passed by or simply ignored. — Charles Saatchi

I hate to sound like a romantic adolescent, but I believe artists don't generally see art as a career choice; they simply can't overcome their desire to make art, and will live on little income for as long as they have to, before they start to sell their work - or give up and get a paying job. — Charles Saatchi

Politics is its own world. It is a court and if the king's eye lights on you, you are a powerful figure. If the king's eye wanders elsewhere, you are out, whatever your title. — Maurice Saatchi

Nothing is as uplifting as standing before a great painting whether it was painted in 1505 or last Tuesday. — Charles Saatchi

I write in the most distressingly slow way in terms of punctuation and grammar. — Maurice Saatchi

I primarily buy art to show it off. — Charles Saatchi

By and large, talent is in such short supply that mediocrity can be taken for brilliance rather more than genius can go undiscovered. — Charles Saatchi

All media owners want to attract advertising revenue. Google is no different. — Maurice Saatchi

If, like me, you have many reasons to be less than secure and self-assured, and like me, you are far from stable even on your best days, don't for a moment imagine a psychotherapist will be of more help than a physiotherapist. — Charles Saatchi

I don't like clothes shopping and trying on outfits in stuffy cubicles in men's shops, looking hideous in the wrap-round mirrors, is something I attempt as seldom as possible. — Charles Saatchi

Being an art buyer these days is comprehensively and indisputably vulgar. It is the sport of the Eurotrashy, Hedge-fundy, Hamptonites; of trendy oligarchs and oiligarchs; and of art dealers with masturbatory levels of self-regard. — Charles Saatchi

There is no rivalry between Google and traditional advertising. — Maurice Saatchi

It's my view that human dignity - an attribute which for years has been taken by the Left in British politics - resides in fact in Tory values of independence, individuality and self determination. — Maurice Saatchi

Lots of ambitious work by young artists ends up in a dumpster after its warehouse debut. So an unknown artist's big glass vitrine holding a rotting cow's head covered by maggots and swarms of buzzing flies may be pretty unsellable. Until the artist becomes a star. Then he can sell anything he touches . — Charles Saatchi

If you stand for something you will have people for you and people against you. But if you stand for nothing you will have nobody for you and nobody against you. — Maurice Saatchi

If you can't reduce your argument to a few crisp words and phrases,
there's something wrong with your argument. — Maurice Saatchi

America's critics can be heard everywhere. It is too much in love with money - worshipping the god of the marketplace, the golden calf. It has too much money, seven of the top 10 banks, eight of the top 10 companies etc. It is too stingy, giving away less of its wealth than other countries. It is vulgar, a rich barbarian. — Maurice Saatchi

Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art. I buy art that I like. I buy it to show it off in exhibitions. Then, if I feel like it, I sell it and buy more art. — Charles Saatchi

If you can't take a good kicking, you shouldn't parade how much luckier you are than other people. — Charles Saatchi

There are no rules about investment. Sharks can be good. Artist's dung can be good. Oil on canvas can be good. — Charles Saatchi

I can't write. I can handle bits of simple-minded advert copy or a poster slogan, so answering questions is about all I'm good for. — Charles Saatchi

I don't buy art in order to leave a mark or to be remembered; clutching at immortality is of zero interest to anyone sane. — Charles Saatchi

Many people cycle or swim to keep trim. But if swimming is so good for the figure, how do you explain whales? — Charles Saatchi

Few people in contemporary art demonstrate much curiosity. The majority spend their days blathering on, rather than trying to work out why one artist is more interesting than another, or why one picture works and another doesn't. — Charles Saatchi

True Americanism is practical idealism. Its aims, instead of being materialistic and mechanical, are idealistic to the point of being Utopian. In this way, the U.S. can provide and express ideals that strike a chord in humans everywhere - a declaration of independence on behalf of all the peoples of the world. — Maurice Saatchi

Charles Saatchi has never liked my work at all. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I have asked to have no funeral, and no memorial service. I hate other people's and would certainly not appreciate my own. — Charles Saatchi

In fact, I argue that the future of advertising, whatever the technology, will be to associate each brand with one word. This is one word equity. It's the modern equivalent of having the best site on the high street, except the location is in the mind. — Maurice Saatchi

I have made so many mistakes, and such really stupid ones, I would start blubbing away if I could remember even half of them. But do not dwell on cock-ups, I say. You don't learn by your mistakes - at least I don't - so best to blunder on making fresh ones. — Charles Saatchi

Nobody can give you advice after you've been collecting for a while. If you don't enjoy making your own decisions, you're never going to be much of a collector anyway. — Charles Saatchi

Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. — Charles Saatchi

I find the theatre faintly embarrassing for the actors performing on stage. It seems rather showy-off in an undignified way. — Charles Saatchi

I don't have to win. I just have to make you lose. — Maurice Saatchi

I don't buy art just to make artists happy any more than I want to make them sad if I sell their work. — Charles Saatchi

Speaking up for America has become a lonely ordeal. — Maurice Saatchi

I don't see myself as a great discoverer of artists, like Charles Saatchi. — Eli Broad

Artistic credentials are au courant in the important business of being seen as cultured, elegant and, of course, stupendously rich. — Charles Saatchi

I don't know very many people in the art world, only socialise with the few I like, and have little time to gnaw my nails with anxiety about any criticism I hear about. — Charles Saatchi

Nobody has a magic lamp which can tell you in advance whether what you say will be effective in persuading an audience. — Maurice Saatchi

Advertising holding companies used to boast about their share of the advertising market. Now they are proud of how much of their business is not in advertising. — Maurice Saatchi

Everyone wants to be immortal. Few are. Margaret Thatcher is. Why? Because her values are timeless, eternal. Tap anyone on the shoulder anywhere in the world, and ask what Mrs Thatcher believed in, and they will tell you. They can give a clear answer to what she 'stood for.' — Maurice Saatchi

I may not be much good at most things, but if I didn't have the pleasure of planning and installing shows, and doing it better than anyone else, I would have stopped buying art many years ago. — Charles Saatchi

Who's to say what will one day appear to have been trendsetting? Sometimes artists who receive breathless acclaim initially, seem to conk out. Other artists who don't register so keenly at the time, prove to be trailblazers. — Charles Saatchi

The fact that in the last 10 years only five of the 40 Turner Prize nominees have been painters tells you more about curators than about the state of painting today. — Charles Saatchi

If you study a great work of art, you'll probably find the artist was a kind of genius. And geniuses are different to you and me. So let's have no talk of temperamental, self-absorbed and petulant babies. Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. I love them all. — Charles Saatchi

There are no hidden depths to me. — Charles Saatchi

When you see something special, something inspired, you realise the debt we owe great curators and their unforgettable shows - literally unforgettable because you remember every picture, every wall and every juxtaposition. — Charles Saatchi