The 41 Greatest Andy Warhol Quotes

Neftali / Shutterstock.com
Neftali / Shutterstock.com
Everybody has a different idea of love. One girl I know said, “I knew he loved me when he didn’t come in my mouth.”
Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.
If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.
The pop artists did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split second — comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles. All the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried not to notice at all.
Publicity is like eating peanuts. Once you start you can’t stop.
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.
I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. I love going out every night. It’s so exciting.
The symptoms of Social disease: You want to go out every night because you’re afraid if you stay home you might miss something. You choose your friends according to whether or not they have a limousine…When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you do is read the society columns. If your name is actually mentioned your day is made. Publicity is the ultimate symptom of Social Disease.
I will go to the opening of anything, including a toilet seat.
Every time I go to Studio 54 I’m afraid I wont get in—maybe there will be somebody new at the door who won’t recognize me.
Uptown is for people who have already done something. Downtown is where they’re doing something now. I live uptown but I love downtown.
I like boring things.
I’d asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions. Finally one lady friend asked the right question, “Well, what do you love most?” That’s how I started painting money.
Pop art is for everyone.
The artificial fascinates me, the bright and the shiny.
Do you know that the Campbell’s Soup Company has not sent me a single can of soup?
I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.
Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets.
I am a deeply superficial person.
Success is when the checks don’t bounce.
I’d prefer to remain a mystery. I never like to give my background and, anyway, I make it all up different every time I’m asked. It’s not just that it’s part of my image not to tell everything, it’s just that I forget what I said the day before, and I have to make it all up over again.
Living in New York City gives people real incentives to want things that nobody else wants.
The most exciting thing is not doing it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it’s much more exciting.
In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.
An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
Art is what you can get away with.
It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.
As soon as you stop wanting something, you get it.
It’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are.
What’s great about this country is 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. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good.
I just do art because I’m ugly and there’s nothing else for me to do.
I think it would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor’s finger.
Sex is the biggest nothing of all time.
The nicer I am, the more people think I’m lying.
I always run into strong women who are looking for weak men to dominate them.
I don’t see anything wrong with being alone, it feels great to me.
When you’re interested in somebody, and you think they might be interested in you, you should point out all your beauty problems and defects right away, rather than take a chance they won’t notice them.
After being alive, the next hardest work is having sex. Of course, for some people it isn’t work because they need the exercise and they’ve got the energy for the sex and the sex gives them even more energy. Some people get energy from sex and some people lose energy from sex. I have found that it’s too much work. But if you have the time for it, and if you need that exercise—then you should do it.
Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, “So what.” That’s one of my favorite things to say. “So what.” “My mother didn’t love me.” So what. “My husband won’t ball me.” So what. “I’m a success but I’m still alone.” So what. I don’t know how I made it through all the years before I learned how to do that trick. It took a long time for me to learn it, but once you do, you never forget.
Sometimes you fantasize that people who are really up-there and rich and living it up have something you don’t have, that their things must be better than your things because they have more money than you. But they drink the same Cokes and eat the same hot dogs and wear the same ILGWU clothes and see the same TV shows and the same movies. Rich people can’t see a sillier version of Truth or Consequences, or a scarier version of The Exorcist. You can get just as revolted as they can—you can have the same nightmares. All of this is really American.
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