Painters From England

"They say big brother is watching you. But maybe big brother is watching dutch girly videos on the next screen along."

"Writing graffiti is about the most honest way you can be an artist. It takes no money to do it, you don't need an education to understand it and there's no admission fee."

"You could say that graffiti is ugly, selfish and that it's just the action of people who want some pathetic kind of fame. But if that's true it's only because graffiti writers are just like everyone else in this fucking country."

"Graffiti ultimately wins out over proper art because it becomes part of your city, it's a tool; 'I'll meet you in that pub, you know, the one opposite that wall with a picture of a monkey holding a chainsaw'. I mean, how much more useful can a painting be than that?"

"Getting paranoid is an occupational hazard of illicit street painting, which is good. Your mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity. I'm not interested in looking at things made by people who aren't paranoid, they're not working to their full capacity."

"People are fond of using military terms to describe what they do. We call it bombing when we go out painting, when of course it's more like entertaining the troops in a neutral zone, during peacetime in a country without an army. Why all the bombs? Because it's healthy to think about bombs all the time, because it's difficult to get your head around the fact that humans have the hardware available to make their entire species extinct. Nobody talks about it anymore but they say this is why we've all become so into money, because at the back of all our minds we all know that the atomic bombs have taken our future away from us."

"My main problem with cops is that they do what they're told. They say 'Sorry mate, I'm just doing my job' all the fucking time. And every time someone says 'if it was down to me it would be ok, but I'm following orders' a little bit inside of you dies. If you say it as often as cops do, then there isn't much left."

"A wall is a very big weapon. It's one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with."

"Only when the last tree has been cut down and the last river has dried up will man realize that reciting red Indian proverbs makes you sound like a fucking Muppet."

"Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums. Graffiti has more chance of meaning something or changing stuff than anything indoors. Graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop wars, and generally is the voice of people who aren't listened to. Graffiti is one of those few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make somebody smile while they're having a piss."

""Superficially his work looks deep, but it's actually deeply superficial." [Evening Standard]"

"Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a living breathing thing which belonged to everybody, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like this and stop leaning against that wall - it's wet."

"They say there is a graffiti problem. The only problem with graffiti is that there isn't enough of it."

"Twisted little people go out every day and deface this great little city. Leaving their idiotic little scribblings, invading communities and making people feel dirty and used. They just take, take, take and they don't put anything back. They're mean and selfish and they make the world an ugly place to be. We call them advertising agencies and town planners."

"This is not a photo opportunity."

"As far as I can tell, the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on day trips with the art department."

"Dissent pays the rent."

"On Tuesday I went around San Francisco dressed in overalls designating large parts of it as legal graffiti areas."

"Policemen and security guards wear hats with a peak that comes down low over their eyes. Apparently this is a psychological technique, because eyebrows are very expressive, they let you down if you're lying or trying to bully somebody. You have far more authority if you keep them covered up. The advantage of this is that if makes it difficult for your average cop to see anything more than six foot off the ground. Which is why painting rooftops and bridges is so easy."

"There's nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place."

"I was concerned the piece was a bit too much like a legitimate sign and told my mate I thought it went over people's heads. 'It's not that it goes over people's heads,' he said, 'it's just that they all fucking ducked.'"

"On my first day of work as a pork butcher the boss showed me a side of meat and said 'just treat the animal like you treat the ladies.' He then hacked off part of the rib cage with a swing of his cleaver, threw it in a polystyrene tray, pulled some cellophane tightly around it, bounced it off his knee and threw it over his shoulder into a bucket. It turned out he hadn't had a girlfriend for over two years."

"Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and defies the law of gravity at the same time is really good."

"All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn to draw?"

"There are four basic human needs: food, sleep, sex and revenge."

"Last year there was a story on the news that went 'A man arrested in Central London today was found to be carrying over a hundred British passports, twenty birth certificates and more than three hundred driving licenses. Police say they have not yet been able to identify the man...'"

"Being yourself is overrated anyway. It doesn't help. People say 'I'm just being myself' as if that's some kind of fucking achievement. That's not an achievement, that's not honesty, it's just a lack of imagination and cowardice."

"Nobody ever listened to me and I used to think that was their fault. Eventually I got to realise maybe it was the fact I was boring and paranoid that was the problem. But you find that people who know you rarely listen to a word you say, even though they'll happily take as gospel the word of a man they've never met if it's on a record or in a book. If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie."

"Oh my god, that's so cute the way you just draw on stuff and think about yourself all the time."

"An illegal monument to the British talent for binge drinking and vandalising public property."

"Recipe idea: take on fire extinguisher and pour out all the contents. Mix down a nice bright emulsion paint to the consistency of full fat milk, stirring constantly to remove any lumps. Pour into the extinguisher, screw on cap tightly and write on things up to 50 feet high. Re-use by swapping over the CO2 charged canister (costs about one pound). The perfect accompaniment to a night out drinking heavily with friends."

"Some mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves."

"Why would someone just paint pictures of a revolutionary when you could actually behave like one instead?"

"People seem to think that if they dress like a revolutionary, they don't actually have to behave like one."

"I think I was trying to make a statement about the endless recycling of an icon by endlessly recycling an icon."

"It's going to take one very special lady, or a whole load of average ones, to get over you."

"There's a famous story about a hobo who hitch-hiked the freight trains across the Australian outback many years ago. He marked his trips by writing the word 'Eternity' everywhere he could in elaborate chalk handwriting. He wrote on so many train cars, bridges and pavements that all across Australia he became part of urban folklore. In 1999 Sydney led the world celebrations for the arrival of a new millennium, and as the eyes of the world watch a spectacular firework display lit up the harbour, at its very center, spanning the length of its famous bridge was the word 'Eternity', spelt out in that same elaborate script by a thousand tiny lights. Fucking sell out." [lightly edited for grammar]"

"When graffiti first started it was about getting noticed. But with inflation 'getting noticed' is worth almost nothing these days. Now you have to be a genuine nuisance if you want to get along."

"Mindless vandalism can take a bit of thought."

"The problem with painting in Zoos is that it's slightly too effective. They tend to get rid of it as soon as possible. I'd had enough when the rope ladder into the Chimpanzee enclosure at the Sydney Zoo snapped and I fell into the moat getting a mouthful of monkey piss. By 10am the next morning the words 'Please help me get out of here I am the victim of a cruel scientific experiment... I am not a monkey... Somebody do something' had been completely painted over. The solution was to write stuff on cardboard and throw it into the enclosures when no one was looking. Then you just sit back and listen to the explanation parents give as their kids ask 'Why don't we just let them go home if they want to, mummy?'"

"Suicide bombers just need a hug."

"My sister threw away loads of my drawings when I was a kid and when I asked her where they were she shrugged and said 'Well it's not like they're ever gonna be hanging in the Louvre, is it?'"

"In a recent survey of American men 42% were found to overeat, 34% were critically overweight, 10% technically obese, and 8% ate the survey."

"[Description of a stuffed mouse dressed as a graffiti artist that Banksy snuck into the London Museum as an exhibit:] "The Banksus Militius is a virulent pest that marks its territory with a series of elaborate signs. Professor R Langford of University College of London states, 'Laugh now but one day they may well be in charge'.""

"I'd been painting rats for three years before someone said 'that's a clever anagram of art' and I had to pretend I'd known that all along."

"People say painting graffiti doesn't change anything, but the GLA committee found that 'house prices can drop by as much as 10% in badly affected areas' so it's worth bearing in mind if you want to get on the property ladder."

"DANGER / CONTAMINATED AREA / RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL" [Fake sign glued into St. James' Park, next to Buckingham Palace, 2004. Became an unlikely collaboration with the Metropolitan Police who made it look far more realistic by stationing a community support officer on the bridge nearby telling people not to be alarmed. Lasted 22 hours.]"

"As soon as you meet someone you know the reason you will leave them."

"Fight the fighters, not their wars."

"When the time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don't make any fuss."