So many people seem to prefer my silver-screenings of movie stars to the rest of my work. It must be the subject matter that attracts them, because my death and violence paintings are just as good.
— 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.
I went to vote once, but I got too scared. I couldn't decide whom to vote for.
We live in an age when the traditional great subjects - the human form, the landscape, even newer traditions such as abstract expressionism - are daily devalued by commercial art.
Since I was shot, everything is such a dream to me. Like I don't know whether I'm alive or whether I died. I wasn't afraid before. And having been dead once, I shouldn't feel fear. But I am afraid. I don't understand why.
Art? That's a man's name.
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.
I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.
I want to be a machine.
Everyone needs a fantasy.
I think the first photograph I did was a ballplayer. It was a way of showing action or something.
I think everybody should like everybody.
What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.
Since people are going to be living longer and getting older, they'll just have to learn how to be babies longer.
Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?
An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.
I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.
I'm for mechanical art. When I took up silk screening, it was to more fully exploit the preconceived image through the commercial techniques of multiple reproduction.
I think they should have movies in restaurants. I can't believe that so many people get together just to sit there. It's so abstract... isn't it abstract? What are these people sitting here watching?
Voyeurism is a director's job description. It's an artist's, too.
If you wear a wig, everybody notices. But if you then dye the wig, people notice the dye.
Checks aren't money.
If you're not trying to be real, you don't have to get it right. That's art.
I want to die with my blue jeans on.
I think it would be terrific if everybody was alike.
People sometimes say the way things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually, it's the way things happen to you in life that's unreal.
I always like to see if the art across the street is better than mine.
I think Chris Burden is terrific. I really do.
Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there - I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television.
People need to be made more aware of the need to work at learning how to live because life is so quick and sometimes it goes away too quickly.
I used to think that everything was just being funny but now I don't know. I mean, how can you tell?
I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is 'In 15 minutes everybody will be famous.'
My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person.
Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.
Sociological critics are waste makers.
I think kids should go to high school until they're 30. No, really, because people are staying younger now and there's nothing to do. If you stayed longer, then it would be really great.
My fascination with letting images repeat and repeat - or in film's case 'run on' - manifests my belief that we spend much of our lives seeing without observing.
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.
Fantasy love is much better than reality love.
The clothes of Courreges are so nice.
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 can know that the President drinks Coke. Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too.
When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums.
Art is what you can get away with.
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.
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.
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.
Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets.
I love Los Angeles, and I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.
Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
