Andy Warhol Thinking Quotations

During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered.

I never think that people die. They just go to department stores.

I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of 'work,' because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do. The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep.

Now and then, someone would accuse me of being evil - of letting people destroy themselves while I watched, just so I could film them and tape-record them. But I didn't think of myself as evil - just realistic.

I think the first photograph I did was a ballplayer. It was a way of showing action or something.

I think kids should go to high school until they're 30. No, really, because people are staying younger now and there's nothing to do. If you stayed longer, then it would be really great.

I've been invited to the White House about five times. I think the greatest thing would be if they actually invited everybody to the White House every night... they'd just take about 500 people a night. Everybody would just love this country because it's so thrilling to go there. It really is.

I think they should have movies in restaurants. I can't believe that so many people get together just to sit there. It's so abstract... isn't it abstract? What are these people sitting here watching?

I think Chris Burden is terrific. I really do.

It’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are.

Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.

I wake up every morning. I open my eyes and think: here we go again.

I think everybody should like everybody.

When I think about what sort of person I would most like to have on a retainer, I think it would be a boss. A boss who could tell me what to do, because that makes everything easy when you're working.

I think anybody can take a good picture. My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous. It's being in the right place at the wrong time.

I think pot should be legal. I don’t smoke it, but I like the smell of it.

I always think I don't do the first one good, so I try to do it more.

Space is all one space and thought is all one thought, but my mind divides its spaces into spaces into spaces and thoughts into thoughts into thoughts. Like a large condominium. Occasionally I think about the one Space and the one Thought, but usually I don't. Usually I think about my condominium.

I think an artist is anybody who does something well, like if you cook well.

Don't think about art, just get it done.

The nicer I am, the more people think I'm lying.

I think it would be great to make a $2 million or $3 million art movie where nobody would really have to go to it. I thought that would be a good project to work on . . . do something really artistic.

Why do people think artists are special? It's just another job.

Most people in America think Art is a man's name.

An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.

I always think about what it means to wear eyeglasses. When you get used to glasses you don't know how far you could really see. I think about all the people before eyeglasses were invented. It must have been weird because everyone was seeing in different ways according to how bad their eyes were. Now, eyeglasses standardize everyone's vision to 20-20. That's an example of everyone becoming more alike. Everyone could be seeing at different levels if it weren't for glasses.

Buying is more American than thinking, and I'm as American as they come.

You should always have a product that has nothing to do with who you are or what people think about you... so that you never start thinking that your product is you, or your fame or your aura.

During the '60s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered. I think that once you see emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again. That's what more or less has happened to me. I don't really know if I was ever capable of love, but after the '60s I never thought in terms of 'love' again.

I can't bear to let all this beautiful talk go by. Everybody says... fantastic things. People are always putting it down as an invasion of privacy, but I think everyone should be bugged all the time... bugged and photographed.

If you don’t think about it, it’s right.

Everybody has their own America, and then they have pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can't see.

I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD BE BUGGED ALL THE TIME...BUGGED AND PHOTOGRAPHED

Think rich, look poor.

I think somebody should be able to do all my paintings for me.

I really believe in empty spaces, although, as an artist, I make a lot of junk. Empty space is never-wasted space. Wasted space is any space that has art in it. An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have but that he, for some reason, thinks it would be a good idea to give them.

I know a girl who just looks at her face in the medicine cabinet mirror and never looks below her shoulders, and she's four or five hundred pounds but she doesn't see all that, she just sees a beautiful face and therefore she thinks she's a beauty. And therefore, I think she's a beauty, too, because I usually accept people on the basis of their self-images, because their self-images have more to do with the way they think than their objective-images do.

The interviewer should just tell me the words he wants me to say and I’ll repeat them after him. I think that would be so great because I’m so empty I just can’t think of anything to say.

Those who talk about individuality the most are the ones who most object to deviation, and in a few years it may be the other way around. Some day everybody will just think what they want to think, and then everybody will probably be thinking alike; that seems to be what is happening.

Edward Smith: What do you think is the characteristic of a really nice person? Some people you obviously do like more than others. Andy Warhol: Ummm, well, if they talk a lot. ES: What, and don't make you talk? AW: Yeah, yes, that's a really nice person.

So today if you see a person who looks like your teenage fantasy walking down the street, it's probably not your fantasy, but someone who had the same fantasy as you and decided instead of getting it or being it, to look like it, and so he went to the store and bought the look that you both like. So forget it. Just think about all the James Deans and what it means.

Some people spend their entire lives thinking about one particular famous person. They pick one person who's famous, and they dwell on him or her. They devote almost their entire consciousness to thinking about this person they've never even met, or maybe met once. If you ask any famous person about the kind of mail they get, you'll find that almost every one of them has at least one person who's obsessed with them and writes constantly. It feels so strange to think that someone is spending their whole time thinking about you.

How can you say one style is better than another? You ought to be able to be an Abstract Expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling you've given up something.. I think that would be so great, to be able to change styles. And I think that's what's is going to happen, that's going to be the whole new scene.

After Wakefield Poole's films, mine are unnecessary and a bit naive, don't you think?

Don't think about making art...

I was trying to think the other day about what you do now in America if you want to be successful. Before, you were dependable and wore a good suit. Looking around, I guess that today you have to do all the same things but not wear a good suit. I guess that's all it is. Think rich. Look poor.

My instinct about painting says, 'if you don't think about it, it's right.' As soon as you have to decide and choose, it's wrong. And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets.

Andy Warhol: I think everybody should like everybody. Gene Swenson: Is that what Pop Art is all about? Andy Warhol: Yes, it's liking things.

What I've always wished I'd invented was paper underwear, even knowing that the idea never took off when they did come out with it. I still think it's a good idea, and I don't know why people resist it when they've accepted paper napkins and paper plates and paper curtains and paper towels-it would make more sense not to have to wash out underwear than not to have to wash out towels.

I want everybody to think alike. I think everybody should be a machine.

I met someone on the street who said wasn't it great that we're going to have a movie star for president, that it was so Pop, and (laughs) when you think about it like that, it is great, it's so American.

I think every painting should be the same size and the same color so they're all interchangeable and nobody thinks they have a better painting or a worse painting.... Besides even when the subject is different, people want the same painting.

Look poor, think rich.

In some circles where very heavy people think they have very heavy brains, words like "charming" and "clever" and "pretty" are all put-downs; all the lighter things in life, which are the most important things, are put down.

Nutty people are always writing me. I always think I must be on some nutty mailing list.

I think video is the best market. When the cassette market comes out, if you just do movies that nobody else can do, that'll be the new way.