Banksy Quotes
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Graffiti's always been a temporary art form. You make your mark and then they scrub it off.
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'Nobody ever listened to me until they didn't know who I was.'
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'There's no way you're going to get a quote from us to use on your book cover.' - Metropolitan Police Spokesperson
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'I sucked a lot of liberal cocks to get where I am today.'
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I started painting graffiti in the classic New York style of big letters and characters but I was never very good at it.
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'Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions, and buy records by the billions. 'We the people' affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art.'
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'Try to avoid painting in places where they still point at aeroplanes.'
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'You can win the rat race but you're still a rat.'
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'We don’t need any more heroes; we just need someone to take out the recycling.'
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'Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can’t even finish my second apple pie.'
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I tell myself I use art to promote dissent, but maybe I am just using dissent to promote my art. I plead not guilty to selling out. But I plead it from a bigger house than I used to live in.
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All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They've been used to start revolutions and to stop wars.
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On Painting Rats, and the Glorification of Them. They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant, and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model.
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The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a sh*t.
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'People who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one.'
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I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.
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I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website - but on the internet, people only look at pictures of kittens.
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Graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.
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I have a theory that you can make any sentence seem profound by writing the name of a dead philosopher at the end of it.
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Some people criticize me for using sources that are a bit low brow (this quote is from 'Gladiator') but you know what? 'I'm just going to use that hostility to make me stronger, not weaker' as Kelly Rowland said on the X Factor.
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If you feel dirty, insignificant or unloved, then rats are a good role model. They exist without permission, they have no respect for the hierarchy of society, and they have sex 50 times a day.
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I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me.
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'I got home at last and crawled into bed next to my girlfriend. I told her I'd had an epiphany that night about using stencils and she told me to stop taking that drug 'cos it's bad for your heart.'
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Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they're having a piss.