Top 200 David Hockney Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You must plan to be spontaneous.”

— David Hockney

2. “Listening is a positive act: you have to put yourself out to do it.”

— David Hockney

3. “Laugh a lot. It clears the lungs.”

— David Hockney

4. “I love California; everything is so artificial.”

— David Hockney

5. “California is always in my mind.”

— David Hockney

6. “I’m a very early riser, and I don’t like to miss that beautiful early morning light.”

— David Hockney

7. “It takes a long time to make it simple.”

— David Hockney

8. “I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong with photography. It’s a one-eyed man looking through a little ’ole. Now, how much reality can there be in that?”

— David Hockney

9. “Drawing takes time. A line has time in it.”

— David Hockney

10. “There is nothing wrong with photography, if you don’t mind the perspective of a paralysed Cyclops.”

— David Hockney

11. “Enjoyment of the landscape is a thrill.”

— David Hockney

12. “On the iPhone I tended to draw with my thumb. Whereas the moment I got to the iPad, I found myself using every finger.”

— David Hockney

13. “If you are not playful you are not alive.”

— David Hockney

14. “Teaching people to draw is teaching people to look.”

— David Hockney

15. “When you stop doing something, it doesn’t mean you are rejecting the previous work. That’s the mistake; it’s not rejecting it, it’s saying, ‘I have exploited it enough now and I wish to take a look at another corner.’”

— David Hockney

16. “I can get excitement watching rain on a puddle. And then I paint it. Now, I admit, there are not too many people who would find that exciting. But I would. And I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is.”

— David Hockney

17. “I believe that the very process of looking can make a thing beautiful.”

— David Hockney

18. “I’m convinced that technology and art go together – and always have, for centuries.”

— David Hockney

19. “My only worry is the painting I’m doing. Nothing else.”

— David Hockney

20. “It’s the very process of looking at something that makes it beautiful.”

— David Hockney

21. “I think I’m greedy, but I’m not greedy for money – I think that can be a burden – I’m greedy for an exciting life.”

— David Hockney

22. “OH, I LIKE smoking, I do. I smoke for my health, my mental health. Tobacco gives you little pauses, a rest from life. I don’t suppose anyone smoking a pipe would have road rage, would they?”

— David Hockney

23. “Technology brought in the mass media and technology is now taking it away.”

— David Hockney

24. “Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.”

— David Hockney

25. “The moment you can learn to deal with homosexuality in art, it’s quite an exciting moment, just as in a sense when people ‘come out’ it’s quite an exciting moment. It means they become aware of their desires, and can deal with them in a remarkably honest way.”

— David Hockney

26. “Cubism was an attack on the perspective that had been known and used for 500 years. It was the first big, big change. It confused people: they said, ‘Things don’t look like that!’”

— David Hockney

27. “Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache.”

— David Hockney

28. “I am constantly preoccupied with how to remove distance so that we can all come closer together, so that we can all begin to sense we are the same, we are one.”

— David Hockney

29. “All art is contemporary, if it’s alive, and if it’s not alive, what’s the point of it?”

— David Hockney

30. “There would be no bohemia without smoking.”

— David Hockney

31. “I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure. I think there is a contradiction in an art of total despair, because the very fact that the art is made seems to contradict despair.”

— David Hockney

32. “I see the iPad as a wonderful new drawing medium, but I am at a loss as to how to make it pay.”

— David Hockney

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

— David Hockney

34. “Anything simple always interests me.”

— David Hockney

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

— David Hockney

36. “Faces are the most interesting things we see; other people fascinate me, and the most interesting aspect of other people – the point where we go inside them – is the face. It tells all.”

— David Hockney

37. “Photoshop came out of painting, and now it’s going back to painting.”

— David Hockney

38. “What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.”

— David Hockney

39. “Just because I’m cheeky, doesn’t mean I’m not serious.”

— David Hockney

40. “The photograph isn’t good enough. It’s not real enough.”

— David Hockney

41. “I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is.”

— David Hockney

42. “I have got an iPad, what a joy! Van Gogh would have loved it, and he could have written his letters on it as well.”

— David Hockney

43. “The camera can’t see space. It sees surfaces. People see space, which is much more interesting.”

— David Hockney

44. “We live in an age where the artist is forgotten. He is a researcher. I see myself that way.”

— David Hockney

45. “I’m very attracted to the great open spaces of the West.”

— David Hockney

46. “I’ve always been interested in space in pictures. I think my going deaf increased my spatial sense, because I can’t get the direction of sound. I feel that I see space very clearly, and that’s because I can’t hear it. So it’s a compensatory thing.”

— David Hockney

47. “I did come from a pretty independent-minded family.”

— David Hockney

48. “Loads of people, particularly artists, hate pretty pictures. Now I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like a pretty face.”

— David Hockney

49. “There’s no-one up there in Northern Norway, food’s terrible, but it’s very, very beautiful to look at, if you’ve got eyes, and enjoy looking.”

— David Hockney

50. “I’m coming ’round to the view that there’s only a personal view of the world.”

— David Hockney