Martin Firrell quotes:

I believe we have to put art back at the center of everyday life rather than allowing it to become a specialist activity at the margins of society.

I am the conscience of the 21st Century.

It is perfectly reasonable to despair of a world where the Nobel Committee gives the Peace Prize to a man running a war.

Quentin Crisp said it to me; now I say it to you: say yes to everything.

Ageing is a privilege not a predicament

The road to freedom is bordered with sunflowers.

Art's true purpose is to be human as opposed to some rarefied activity set away from real life. I think art should help you to navigate the real challenges of being a human being.

Different is not wrong.

Everyone is as confused as I am.

I can accept no responsibility for any changes in your existence, miraculous or otherwise. You must take responsibility for your own life. You must have your own life because if you haven't had at least that, what have you had?

I realized that the only possible response was to go to my wonderful local café, Maison Bertaux, check everyone was well, eat a little cake and then make art. To me, making art, and in particular public art, is always an assertion of our humanity and our strength.

I want to live in a city where immigration is seen as a new source of strength.

Revolutions have always started in cafés.

Security is no replacement for liberty.

Art is like a fart for the soul. Better out than in.

Art should help you to navigate the real challenges of being a human being.

Calamitous collapse is better than mediocre defeat!

Everybody should be entitled to one lie, one failing, one infidelity.

How rare that an artist should make something which forces us to think, and encourages us to stop and think, to question why we behave the way we do.

I do see myself as aiming to foment some kind of revolution.

I have a fundamental faith in folk, that people are interesting and good.

I want to live in a city where the people who make the rules have to live by them.

I want to live in a city where the police don't shoot you.

If obedience invariably leads to cruelty, disobedience is our moral duty.

If the great Western experiment fails and we end up living in totalitarian war-on-terrorism states, one day someone's going to say, 'Well democracy doesn't work because they had to give it up'.

It is in the nature of truth not to be at fault.

Never fall for someone with a body to diet for.

The other side of reverence is loathing.

There's not a lesbian hero that everybody can relate to.

This is the way the world really ends: not with whimper but a desperate chuckle.

War is always a failure. It means we've failed in diplomacy and we've failed in talking to one another.

When the world's run by fools it's the duty of intelligence to disobey.

Why settle for the art world when you can have the whole world?

Women are much more honourable than men.

If we're being told to do stupid or cruel things, then it is morally correct to disobey.

Writing adds up to the conscience of our times.