380 Quotes by David Hockney

I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure...ther e is always, everywhere, an enormous amount of suffering. But I believe my duty as an artist is to overcome and alleviate the sterility of despair...New ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling... I do believe that painting can change the world.

It's all right if you don't mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralyzed Cyclops—for a split second.

Perspective is a law of optics... The Chinese did not have a system like it. Indeed, it is said they rejected the idea of the vanishing point in the eleventh century, because it meant the viewer was not there, indeed, had no movement, therefore was not alive.

I can get excitement watching rain on a puddle. And then I paint it. Now, I admit, there are not too many people who would find that exciting. But I would. And I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is.

With chemical film, it was possible to alter photographs, but you had to be an expert. That's not true any more. The LA Times fired a photographer at the beginning of the Iraq War for editing two shots together. Photography is crumbling. Certainly it is for the newspapers a bit now, isn't it? There will be painting again, absolutely!

I never work with music. I hate background music, always did. I only like music in the foreground, meaning, deliberately listen to it, actually.

I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is.

All art is contemporary, if it's alive, and if it's not alive, what's the point of it?

Teaching people to draw is teaching people to look