Andy Warhol Quotations

Andy Warhol was an American painter, filmmaker, publisher, actor and major figure in the Pop Art movement.

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In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.
- Catalogue of an exhibition of his art in Stockholm, Sweden (1968)
- This quotation has produced a common cliché about fame in pop-culture which is called "15 minutes of fame"; it has often been paraphrased or misquoted in various ways, including:

In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes.

In the future everyone will be famous for 15 million years.

In the future everyone will have their fifteen minutes of fame

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 Is Pop Art?" Art News, November 1963

It's the place where my prediction from the sixties finally came true: "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, "In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous."
- Andy Warhol's Exposures (1979) commenting on the nightclub "Studio 54", and his world famous quote.

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again) (1975) ISBN 978-0156717205

The most beautiful thing in Tokyo is McDonald's. The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is McDonald's. The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald's. Peking and Moscow don't have anything beautiful yet.
- Ch. 4 : Beauty, p. 71

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. Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery. People are working every minute. The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep.
- Ch. 6 : Work

What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it...........
- Ch. 6 : Work, p. 100

They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
- Ch. 7 : Time, p. 113

Edward Smith: Would you like to see your pictures on as many walls as possible, then?
Andy Warhol: Uh, no, I like them in closets.

Edward Smith: Why is it more of a pleasure to do 30 or 40 pictures than to do just one?
Andy Warhol: Then I can, uh, listen to my soundabout which looks just like the thing that I'm wearing now, and you can listen to opera and stuff like that.
Edward Smith: Does that mean you don't have to think when you're painting?
Andy Warhol: No, you can listen to really good music.
Edward Smith: So, what, painting is an excuse to listen to really good music?
Andy Warhol: Oh, yeah.

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.
Edward Smith: What, and don't make you talk?
Andy Warhol: Yeah, yes, that's a really nice person.
Edward Smith: Thank you, Andy.

No director in human history has ever made or will ever make worse movies. Warhol makes Ed Wood look like Ingmar Bergman.
- Dana Gioia, "Glass Appeal: Philip Glass's Film Scores," San Francisco Magazine (October 2002)