Top 50 Robert Mapplethorpe Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I want to see something I’ve never seen before.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

2. “Beauty and the devil are the same thing.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

3. “Happiness? No, it’s not there for me.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

4. “I don’t think that there’s that much difference between a photograph of a fist up someone’s ass and a photograph of carnations in a bowl.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

5. “Whether it’s an orgy or a cocktail party, I know how to do it.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

6. “If I had been born one or two hundred years ago, I might have been a sculptor, but photography is a very quick way to see, to make sculpture.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

7. “I stand naked when I draw. God holds my hand and we sing together.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

8. “I’m looking for the unexpected. I’m looking for things I’ve never seen before.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

9. “I just try to live my life and do my thing.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

10. “If I have to change my lifestyle, I don’t want to live.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

11. “I come from suburban America. It was a very safe environment and it was a good place to come from in that it was a good place to leave.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

12. “I don’t use recreational drugs, except for cocaine, hallucinogens, and nitrates.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

13. “I always thought I was good. That’s why it was so frustrating when other people didn’t agree.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

14. “My work is about seeing – seeing things like they haven’t been seen before.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

15. “The photographs that are art have to be separated from the rest – then preserved.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

16. “To make pictures big is to make them more powerful.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

17. “The best picture I got was Bianca Jagger whispering in Mick’s ear. I caught them telling a secret, which is sort of rude.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

18. “I played around with the flowers and the lighting, so that was a good way to educate myself.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

19. “I was a Catholic boy, I went to church every Sunday. A church has a certain magic and mystery for a child. It still shows in how I arrange things. It’s always little altars.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

20. “I am obsessed with beauty. I want everything to be perfect, and of course it isn’t. And that’s a tough place to be because you’re never satisfied.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

21. “You’re never going to get anywhere in life if you don’t live up to your obligations.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

22. “I should try to get some sleep as one doesn’t know what tomorrow may bring.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

23. “When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

24. “I don’t think any collector knows his true motivation.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

25. “This AIDS stuff is pretty scary. I hope I don’t get it.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

26. “My theory about creativity is that the more money one has, the more creative one can be.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

27. “When I’m behind a camera I forget I exist.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

28. “If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

29. “People have done pornographic pictures forever, but most of the people who involve themselves in explicit sexuality aren’t really artists.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

30. “My father wants me to be like my brother, but I can’t be.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

31. “Just because I was out at the bars all the time didn’t mean I wasn’t looking for someone to love.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

32. “I don’t believe in dogmas and theologies. I just believe in being a good person.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

33. “I never liked photography. Not for the sake of photography. I like the object. I like the photographs when you hold them in your hand.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

34. “I just hope I can live long enough to see the fame.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

35. “The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

36. “I see things like they’ve never been seen before. Art is an accurate statement of the time in which it is made.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

37. “My lifestyle is bizarre, but the only thing you need to know is where the darkroom is.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

38. “If I am at a party, I want to be at the party. Too many photographers use the camera to avoid participating in things. They become professional observers.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

39. “Whenever you make love to someone, there should be three people involved – you, the other person, and the devil.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

40. “I’m not photographing anything naked these days. I haven’t been concentrating on bodies recently.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

41. “I am selfish, but that’s an attribute that all artists possess.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

42. “I’ve never lied. I think I’ve lived a moral life.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

43. “I just want to be written about as a normal artist.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

44. “I wish I could be elegant.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

45. “I became the toast of London. A lot of people I met came from these really decadent families where the married men were gay and no one thought anything about it.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

46. “I think that it was a great advantage to go into photography not knowing much about it. Not thinking. I think one of the problems with many photographers today is that they never see for themselves, but just like everybody else...”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

47. “People don’t have time to wait for somebody to paint their portraits anymore. The money is in photography.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

48. “I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today’s existence.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

49. “One must ease the public into it – that’s an art in itself.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe

50. “I recorded that because it happened to me. I wasn’t making a point.”

— Robert Mapplethorpe