Quotes By David Hockney

You must plan to be spontaneous.

Well you can't teach the poetry, but you can teach the craft.

I'm a bit claustrophobic, I don't like crowds, I live by the sea - that's what I see when I come out of my house in Bridlington.

But the moment you use an ordinary camera, you are not seeing the picture, remember, meaning, you had to remember what you've taken. Now you could see it of course, with a digital thing, but remember in 1982 you couldn't.

I'm a bit of a propagandist.

Always live in the ugliest house on the street - then you don't have to look at it.

It's no good saying I wished I could go out more, because I can't. But I don't bother about it too much.

Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus.

Being able to draw means being able to put things in believable space. People who don't draw very well can't do that.

People criticized me for my photography. They said it's not art.

I'm a natural sceptic.

I think I am seeing more clearly now than ever.

West Yorkshire is quite dramatic and beautiful, the crags and things.

It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work.

I do do a lot of talking, because it saves me listening.

I've always felt very English.

Easel painting means small painting.

The moment I got a very big studio, everything took off.

A lot of people, given the chance, would blow up everything, and you and me.

It's time to debate images, especially when someone's going to prison for downloading them.

Tobacco is America's greatest gift to the world!

You had to be aware that I saw that photography was a mere episode in the history of the optical projection and when the chemicals ended, meaning the picture was fixed by chemicals, we were in a new era.

I've realized that I can do performances.

I'm fed up with being bossed around.

I think cubism has not fully been developed. It is treated like a style, pigeonholed and that's it.

I paint what I like, when I like and where I like.

Smoking calms me down. It's enjoyable. I don't want politicians deciding what is exciting in my life.

I made a photograph of a garden in Kyoto, the Zen garden, which is a rectangle. But a photograph taken from any one point will not show, well it shows a rectangle, but not with ninety degree angles.

A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.

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.