110 Quotes by Julian Schnabel

I think the nice thing about showing work in New York is that other artists come to see it. When you show work in Switzerland or somewhere else, everywhere else seems to be the provinces in a certain way. You wonder what your paintings are doing on the walls and you wonder who’s looking at them.

I guess I am ruthless too because that’s what makes a great artist. But I also respect people, I don’t go around stepping on their heads.

I’ve never made a movie to make money. I’ve never made a painting to make money.

There are certain times you want to be here and there are certain times you want to just go. And when you go, it’s usually so exhausting you have to check into a hospital when you come home!

I don’t know if I could, like, see a face and know what the face of beauty looks like, but after I’ve seen it I know if I’ve felt like it was beauty.

I don’t like building, I’m not a carpenter, I don’t like constructions particularly and things like that, but placements and the kinds of psychological weight that different materials have is pretty interesting to me.

I think it’s your own ghost, seeing the work and just thinking if it will be okay to leave that around.

What’s interesting about making art is that you take everything you know about it and you bring it up to that point, and you start making a physical thing that addresses what that is. And when you do it, you don’t know anything about it – if it’s going to work or not work.

If I hung one of my paintings next to someone else’s, I knew mine would kind of pop off the wall.