Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

So smoking is the perfect way to commit suicide without actually dying. I smoke because it's bad, it's really simple.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

People don't like contemporary art, but all art starts life as contemporary - I can't really see a difference.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

In an artwork you're always looking for artistic decisions, so an ashtray is perfect. An ashtray has got life and death.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

But I think it's more that when you're young, you're invincible, you're immortal - or at least you think you are. The possibilities are limitless, you're inventing the future. Then you get older and suddenly you have a history. It's fixed. You can't change anything. I find that a bit disturbing, to be honest.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

The difference between art about death and actual death is that one's a celebration and the other's a dull fact.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

It's amazing what you can do with an E in A-Level art, a twisted imagination and a chainsaw.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

The goal in life is to be solid, whereas the way that life works is totally fluid, so you can never actually achieve that goal.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

But whenever I look at the question of how to live, the answer's always staring me in the face. I'm already doing it.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

But the answer to how to live is to stop thinking about it. And just to live. But you're doing that anyway. However you intellectualise it, you still just live.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

For me, art is always a kind of theater.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

I was taught to confront things you can't avoid. Death is one of those things. To live in a society where you're trying not to look at it is stupid because looking at death throws us back into life with more vigour and energy. The fact that flowers don't last for ever makes them beautiful.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

That's the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice, you can make great paintings.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

'Painting like a child' isn't a negative for me... it's something only great artists can really achieve. The childlike quality of some of Picasso's drawings is precisely what makes them so masterful and extraordinary; the ability to express complete visions, feelings and portraits through a continuous line.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

I had a passport where I wrote 'artist' under 'occupation' and I remember thinking, 'That's it, it's proved!'

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

I have always been aware that you have to get people listening before you can change their minds. Any artist's big fear is being ignored, so if you get debate, that's great.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

I always look at money not as a motivating factor but as an element in the composition. You can't ignore it, but you've got to be very careful that it's not motivating you.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

It'd be nice to make lots of money but it's quite difficult, because every time I make lots of money I make a bigger piece that costs lots of money.

Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst

I remember when you used to have your profession on your passport and I always thought that being a painter was the best one to be, because my heroes were Goya and Francis Bacon.