Whenever I've been well-known or hitting the press, I've always had to get my credit card out to prove I'm Damien Hirst.

It's such a crass idea - you're either in love or out of love.

I can't understand why most people believe in medicine and don't believe in art, without questioning either.

I have always been aware that you have to get people listening before you can change their minds. Any artist's big fear is being ignored, so if you get debate, that's great.

It's very easy to say, 'I could have done that,' after someone's done it. But I did it. You didn't. It didn't exist until I did it.

I think as an artist you have to reinvent yourself every day.

Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity.

You've really got to get down on the floor with yourself and get low in order to make great art. I think you've just got to accept who you are and do the most unbelievable things.

I sometimes feel that I have nothing to say and I want to communicate this.

I believe all painting and art should be uplifting for the viewer.

I love color. I feel it inside me. It gives me a buzz.

He that is hard to please, may get nothing in the end.

If you battle L, you picked the wrong head I smash mics like cornbread You can't kill me, I was born dead

The liberator who destroys my property is fighting to save my spirit. The teacher who clears all possessions from my path will set me free.

There will be books written about Harry. Every child in the world will know his name.

Nothing can be more idle than the opposition of theory to practice!

I prefer always to think that I am creating a book, not a series of stand-alone poems.

Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and demons.

Being an athlete, you try to get protein.

In some ways, I lament the introduction of civilisation on such a huge scale, because it has given us a lot of room to abuse each other, which we continue to do.