It'd be nice to make lots of money but it's quite difficult, because every time I make lots of money I make a bigger piece that costs lots of money.

It's good to have a title that's not just one word. If you're gonna title it, you might as well try and say something.

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

My Mum brought me up to believe that if you look after the pennies then the pounds look after themselves, and I could never do it.

No, I don't believe in genius. I believe in freedom. I think anyone can do it. Anyone can be like Rembrandt.

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

Picasso, Michelangelo, possibly, might be verging on genius, but I don't think a painter like Rembrandt is a genius.

The difference between art about death and actual death is that one's a celebration and the other's a dull fact.

The idea of being a painter, I've always thought, is better than being an artist or a sculptor.

There's no possible way you can get what you want.

When it comes to the British monarchy, I prefer to be seduced by an image than presented with a real person. It's kind of a Warhol thing.

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.

You need a big ego to be an artist.

I always look at money not as a motivating factor but as an element in the composition. You can't ignore it, but you've got to be very careful that it's not motivating you.

Most people live in the city and go to the country at the weekend, and that's posh and aristocratic, but actually to live in the country and come to London when you can't take it any more is different.

But it's like the horror of being in a studio with a blank canvas. I used to always run out of ideas because there are so many possibilities and I would just think, well what am I going to do now!

But the answer to how to live is to stop thinking about it. And just to live. But you're doing that anyway. However you intellectualise it, you still just live.

Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different.

I always feel a bit trapped when a painting goes for millions of pounds and only one person can have it. If you can have that as well as a poster on every student's wall, then you're in a very enviable position. I'd like to do a Damien Hirst for £500 at some point.

I remember when you used to have your profession on your passport and I always thought that being a painter was the best one to be, because my heroes were Goya and Francis Bacon.