76 Quotes by Cindy Sherman

We’re all products of what we want to project to the world. Even people who don’t spend any time, or think they don’t, on preparing themselves for the world out there – I think that ultimately they have for their whole lives groomed themselves to be a certain way, to present a face to the world.

My dad was such a bigot. He was a horrible, self-centred person. He was really racist and he’d talk about the Jews and blacks and Catholics even.

I am fine, though it is hard to think of what kind of work to make at this point, other than decorative, escapist or abstract. I suppose I’ll explore one or all of these things.

I’m disgusted with how people get themselves to look beautiful; I’m much more fascinated with the other side.

I think I always resented the fact that people thought I was trying to entertain them with my multifaceted, chameleonlike character changes. Although I liked doing that, I wasn’t out to fool people and say ‘Guess which one is me.’

People think because it’s photography it’s not worth as much, and because it’s a woman artist, you’re still not getting as much – there’s still definitely that happening. I’m still really competitive when it comes to, I guess, the male painters and male artists. I still think that’s really unfair.

I was feeling guilty in the beginning; it was frustrating to be successful when a lot of my friends weren’t. Also, I was constantly being reminded of that by people in my family making jokes.

Every time you have to come up with a new body of work for a new show, you’re aware that people are just ready to rip you apart, they’re just waiting for you to fall or make the slightest trip up.

I don’t analyze what I’m doing. I’ve read convincing interpretations of my work, and sometimes I’ve noticed something that I wasn’t aware of, but I think, at this point, people read into my work out of habit. Or I’m just very, very smart.