380 Quotes by David Hockney

I was 18 when I first visited London, I’m very provincial like that, but I must confess the moment I got to America I thought: This is the place. It was more open, with 24-hour cities and pubs and restaurants that didn’t close.

I’m a bit claustrophobic, I know that now.

I was aware that the teaching of drawing was being stopped almost 30 years ago. And I always said, ‘The teaching of drawing is the teaching of looking.’ A lot of people don’t look very hard.

The vanishing point leads to the missiles of today, which can take us out of this world. It could be that the west’s greatest mistakes were the ‘invention’ of the external vanishing point and the internal combustion engine.

I think photography has made us see the landscape in a very dull way – that’s one of its effects. It’s not spatial.

Movie actors disappear – any young person wouldn’t know Cary Grant. They’re going to disappear. Fifty years ago, you thought film was here to stay. But nothing is here to stay, actually – except perhaps paintings and drawings.

I’m rather shocked by what I thought was simple mindedness actually. I thought they’re not looking, they’re not actually looking.

I stay up nights and fiddle with my opera designs. It’s a bit obsessive. That’s why I can’t do it all the time.

I don’t value prizes of any sort.