Best 29 quotes of Grayson Perry on MyQuotes

Artists should imprint their handwriting on the work, because if they give a piece to a fabrication studio, the craftsmen there may actually be too perfect; you don't see the quirks that the artist would have developed.

Beauty and seriousness are perhaps the most shocking tactics left to artists these days.

Contemporary art often plays to the part of us that is very uncomfortable with not being sure, that cannot maintain a state of 'don't know'. The over-prioritising of meaning gets in the way of just experiencing the art in a more sensual way. Judging quality purely from an intuitive emotional response needs more confidence and experience than just working it out like a crossword clue.

Creativity is mistakes.

Desmond Morris says that men make better artists because they are greater risk-takers; on the other hand, he thinks that women are better organisers and diplomats and more suited to become politicians.

I always say to people if you want to see what Britain looks like, watch Gogglebox. It's brilliant and funny and warm and clever.

If you're in the culture business, you're not so locked in to your class, or you can have fun with it.

If you want to be successful in the art world you've got to look to the art world; you don't make it for the bloke next door and then hope the art world is going to look at it. That's one of the big mistakes people make.

I like the idea of my art being a covetable object; I like preciousness. A lot of art seems to flaunt its throw-away character... But you have to sail out into the dangerous sea of fine art with these crafted works.

I think when we talk of craft we talk of a certain set of processes, whether that be clay of glass if jewelry or textiles, and we look back through history instantly.

It is true that there are not many smiling faces in modern art galleries. Happy art is much harder to make. Art and humour are uneasy bedfellows. Artists need strong feelings to motivate them to make things. I am often fuelled by anger.

Originality is for people with short memories

Taste is a phenomenon. Most of taste is unconscious - it comes from your upbringing, from your family, from your society, your gender, your race; it's a melange of all those things.

The basic premise of taste, as Stephen Bayley, the cultural critic, said, is that taste is that which does not alienate your peers. Most people want to fit in with their tribe in some way or another, so they give off signals, whether it's with their clothes, their behavior, their car, their whatever, and gain status. Every tribe has a hierarchy, and that's what taste is: it's an unconscious display of who you are, and where you want to be.

The middle class male thinks he has a monopoly on objectivity.

Until we can insert a USB into our ear and download our thoughts, drawing remains the best way of getting visual information on to the page. I draw as a collagist, juxtaposing images and styles of mark-making from many sources. The world I draw is the interior landscape of my own personal obsessions and of cultures I have absorbed and adapted, from Latvian folk art to Japanese screens. I lasso thoughts with a pen. I draw a stave church or someone from Hello! magazine not because I want to replicate how they look, but because of the meaning they bring to the work.

An artist's job is to make new clichés.

A revolution is happening. I am loath to use the R word, because bearded young men – and it does tend to be men who resort to such means – usually characterize revolution as sudden and violent. But that is just another unhelpful cliché. I feel revolutions that really effect lasting change happen thoughtfully in peacetime.

Art history is a global version of that old children's game Chinese whispers.

Before we learn to speak or understand language, we are being indoctrinated in gender. The first question most people ask when they hear of a birth is ‘Is it a boy or a girl?

Digital natives and millennials seem more at ease with gender fluidity. In the last year or two, we have seen high-profile moves towards trans awareness and acceptance. Young men, particularly well-educated, metropolitan guys, seem a lot less afraid of appearing gay. Maybe the Department of Masculinity is losing its grip. Like those once unassailable high-street chains which suddenly go bust, maybe the Department will one day reach a tipping point where no one will buy its wares any more. As with many real stores, maybe the Internet is helping to break the Department’s monopoly. Young men are shopping around for alternative visions of the masculine role that fit how they feel. In the future, I hope young men can easily adopt a plurality of masculinities as easily as shopping for a coat.

Having a penis can be like having an illusory prize dangled in front of you. It symbolizes a historical birthright to power, respect and pride.

Here’s a quote from the musician Tracey Thorn of Everything but the Girl. I think it’s great. It really describes the problem of irony: ‘It is difficult for people in the arts to be entirely sincere about things without looking like they have not thought it out properly. The problem with irony is that it assumes the position of being the end result, from having looked at it from both sides and having a very sophisticated take on everything. So the danger of eschewing irony is that you look as though you’ve not thought hard enough about it and that you’re being a bit simplistic.

Masculinity is mainly a construct of conditioned feelings around people with penises.

Since 1960s pop art the art world has been happy for artists to use the lowbrow to add zest and authenticity to their works. But middlebrow has resonances of the suburban bourgeousie who might see art as aspirational by association.

The sound a box of Lego makes is the noise of a child's mind working, looking for the right piece. Shake it, and it's almost creativity in aural form.

We need to rebrand vulnerability and emotion. A vulnerable man is not some weird anomaly. He is open to being hurt, but also open to love.

We should not deny males the opportunity to nurture and care, just as we should not deny females the opportunity to kill and maim in the name of Western democracy, if they fancy it.

You want someone in the ballpark and then you grow together. Thats what a relashionship's about: changing each other.