Jenny Holzer Quotes

Raise boys and girls the same way.

Alienation produces eccentrics or revolutionary.

I seldom have my stuff up unless I'm testing it. If I'm worrying about a painting, I put it up and see if I detest it quickly or slowly. Otherwise I have things by other artists.

WHEN YOU'RE TRYING SOMETHING NEW,
YOU'RE TORN BETWEEN
ANTICIPATING A DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE
AND THINKING YOU'RE A FOOL TO
IGNORE WHAT YOU KNOW YOU LIKE.

MANY DOGS RUN WILD IN THE CITY.
SOME ARE ABANDONED BY THEIR OWNERS
AND OTHERS ARE BORN TO LOST DOGS.
STRAYS HAVE A LIMITED LIFE EXPECTANCY
EVEN WHEN THEY BAND TOGETHER IN PACKS.
THEY ARE PREY TO DISEASE, PARASITES,
WEATHER AND AUTOMOBILES.
THEY TEND TO BE FRIGHTENED AND VICIOUS.
THEY ARE UNABLE TO PROTECT THEMSELVES
OR ANYONE ELSE.

A name means a lot just by itself.

If you behaved nicely, the communists wouldn't exist.

Ensure that your life stays in flux.

I used language because I wanted to offer content that people - not necessarily art people - could understand.

A lot of professionals are crackpots.

THERE'S NO REASON TO SLEEP
CURLED UP AND BENT.
IT'S NOT COMFORTABLE,
IT'S NOT GOOD FOR YOU, AND IT
DOESN'T PROTECT YOU FROM DANGER.
IF YOU'RE WORRIED ABOUT AN ATTACK
YOU SHOULD STAY AWAKE
OR SLEEP LIGHTLY WITH
LIMBS UNFURLED FOR ACTION.

It is embarrassing to be caught and killed for stupid reasons

HOW CONCISE THAT YOU CAN CRY FROM
AWFUL WOUNDS, DESERTION, HAPPINESS,
MEMORIES, HUMILIATION,
DISAPPOINTMENT OR GRANDEUR.

THERE IS A PERIOD WHEN IT IS CLEAR
THAT YOU HAVE GONE WRONG
BUT YOU CONTINUE.
SOMETIMES THERE IS A
LUXURIOUS AMOUNT OF TIME
BEFORE ANYTHING BAD HAPPENS.

Company makes my day.

MORE THAN ONCE I'VE AWAKENED WITH
TEARS RUNNING DOWN MY CHEEKS.
I HAVE HAD TO THINK WHETHER
I WAS CRYING OR WHETHER IT
IS INVOLUNTARY, LIKE DROOLING.

I think of a piece, and then people who are competent fabricate it. But lately I've started finger painting, which probably should be a joke but isn't!

How do you resign yourself to something that will never be? You stop wanting just that thing. You go numb. Or you kill the agent of desire.

She has no taste left to her and this makes it easier for me.
The color of her where she is inside is enough to make me kill her.

It's good to be employable, but I hope to show the truth. The paintings seem true because nobody wants me to do them.

THE FOND OLD COUPLE WAS
DISAPPEARING TOGETHER THROUGH
SUCCESSIVE AMPUTATIONS.

Someone else's body is a place for your mind to go.

Turn soft and lovely anytime you have the chance.

When my daughter was young, she thought all electronic signs were mine.

Ruin your fucking self before they do. Otherwise they'll screw you because you're a nobody. They'll keep you alive but you'll have to crawl and say "thank-you" for every bone they throw. You might as well stay drunk or shoot junk and be a crazy fucker. If the rich guys want to play with you, make them get their hands dirty. Send them away gagging, or sobbing if they're soft-hearted. You'll be left alone if you're frightening, and dead you're free!

With you inside me comes the knowledge of my death.

It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender.

Destroy superabundance. Starve the flesh, shave the hair, clarify the mind, define the will, restrain the senses, leave the family, flee the church, kill the vermin,vomit the heart, forget the dead. Limit time, forgo amusement, deny nature, reject acquaintances, discard objects, forget truths, dissect myth, stop motion, block impulse, choke sobs, swallow chatter. Scorn joy, scorn touch, scorn tragedy, scorn liberty, scorn constancy, scorn hope, scorn exaltation, scorn reproduction, scorn variety, scorn embellishment, scorn release, scorn rest, scorn sweetness, scorn light. It's a question of form as much as function. It is a matter of revulsion.

I WALK IN / I SEE YOU / I WATCH YOU / I SCAN YOU / I WAIT FOR YOU / I TICKLE YOU / I TEASE YOU / I SEARCH YOU / I BREATHE YOU / I TALK / I SMILE / I TOUCH YOUR HAIR / YOU ARE THE ONE / YOU ARE THE ONE WHO DID THIS TO ME / YOU ARE MY OWN / I SHOW YOU / I FEEL YOU / I ASK YOU / I DON'T ASK / I DON'T WAIT / I WON'T ASK YOU / I CAN'T TELL YOU / I LIE / I AM CRYING HARD / THERE WAS BLOOD / NO ONE TOLD ME / NO ONE KNEW / MY MOTHER KNOWS / I FORGET YOUR NAME / I DON'T THINK / I BURY MY HEAD / I BURY YOUR HEAD / I BURY YOU / MY FEVER / MY SKIN / I CANNOT BREATHE / I CANNOT EAT / I CANNOT WALK / I AM LOSING TIME / I AM LOSING TIME / I AM LOSING GROUND / I CANNOT STAND IT / I CRY / I CRY OUT / I BITE / I BITE YOUR LIP / I BREATHE YOUR BREATH / I PULSE / I PRAY / I PRAY ALOUD / I SMELL YOU ON MY SKIN / I SAY THE WORD / I SAY YOUR NAME / I COVER YOU / I SHELTER YOU / I RUN FROM YOU / I SLEEP BESIDE YOU / I SMELL YOU ON MY CLOTHES / I KEEP YOUR CLOTHES

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE
AND IT DOES ME
NO GOOD AT ALL

FEW CAN IGNORE A BABY'S CRIES,
EVEN IF THE RESPONSE IS IRRITATION.
THIS IS ONE OF THE BUILT IN SAFEGUARDS
THAT IS SUPPOSED TO GUARANTEE
THE SURVIVAL OF THE RACE.

I really like doing the laundry, because I succeed at it. But I loathe putting it away. It is already clean.

Savor kindness because cruelty is always possible later.

TRYING TO BE POPULAR IN HIGH SCHOOL IS LIKE TRYING TO BE MAYOR OF A CITY THAT WON'T EXIST IN FOUR YEARS.

At times your unconsciousness is truer than your conscious mind

OBVIOUSLY YOU STRIKE OUT
AGAINST PEOPLE WITHIN RANGE.
IT'S CATHARTIC TO AFFECT
SOMEONE WHEN YOU'RE ANGRY.
ALTERNATIVELY, CHOOSE
ENEMIES IMPOSSIBLY FAR AWAY
SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO FIGHT.

Anger or hate can be a useful motivating force

Killing is unavoidable but is nothing to be proud of

I'd been doing projects outdoors for the public. I made pigeons eat geometry by putting bread out in rhomboids and triangles. I don't know if this activity made sense, but the work was available.

A sense of timing is the mark of a genius.

When you start liking pain things start to get interesting.

Well, I think in trying to make life seem real enough that one is moved to do something about the more atrocious things. By going really far afield into a completely fake world, maybe there's a chance to make things resonant somehow - or in this case, truly terrifying. To make it as bad as the real stuff that's happening.

I get up about four times a night and go back to sleep, or not. Then I swill tea around 8 a.m. I answer e-mail, while I stall thinking about whatever scares me.

The epiphany for me was that I wasn't a writer, and I had to do something with these texts. I put them in the streets as posters.

Everyone's work is equally important.

Ideals are replaced by conventional goals at a certain age.

Drama often obscures the real issues

The desperate things seem to require attention, the lovely things seem to elicit celebration. If I had to choose, I would go to the awful in the hope that doing something could yield a happier result.

Go where people sleep and see if they are safe

I wanted to support things that are helpful to people and maybe bash what I think is dangerous. So I switched from being everybody to being myself.

A little knowledge can go a long way.

So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.

Remember you always have freedom of choice.

SPIT ALL OVER SOMEONE WITH A MOUTHFUL OF MILK IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT SOMETHING ABOUT THEIR PERSONALITY FAST.

One thing that changed when I moved upstate was that I became interested in different materials. I started making the stone benches because I was seeing rocks.

WHAT A SHOCK WHEN THEY TELL YOU
IT WON'T HURT AND YOU ALMOST
TURN INSIDE OUT WHEN THEY BEGIN.

Slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison

You confuse me with something that is in you. I will not predict how you want to use me.

I moved to New York in the 1970s and started writing when I was at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Fear is the greatest incapacitator.

I SAW THEIR STUNNING BODIES GO SLACK
AND GET HAIR IN THE WRONG PLACES
AND I VOWED I WOULD NOT PERMIT
THAT TO HAPPEN TO ME.

In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy.

Being alone with yourself is increasingly unpopular.

On the worst days, I don't feel like an artist.

Being happy is more important than anything else.

YOU SHOULD LIMIT THE NUMBER OF TIMES
YOU ACT AGAINST YOUR NATURE,
LIKE SLEEPING WITH PEOPLE YOU HATE.
IT¹S INTERESTING TO TEST YOUR CAPABILITIES FOR A WHILE
BUT TOO MUCH WILL CAUSE DAMAGE.

Usually going places makes me feel optimistic. And I'm a hillbilly, so heading to the countryside made sense a number of ways.

Disgust is the appropriate response to most situations

IT'S NICE WHEN YOU DECIDE TO LIKE SOMEONE
AND, WITHOUT DECLARING YOURSELF,
DO WHAT'S POSSIBLE
TO FURTHER HIS HAPPINESS.
THIS CAN TAKE THE FORM OF GIFTS,
LOVELY FOOD, PUBLICITY, OR
ADVANCED WARNING.

Expiring for love is beautiful but stupid.

It's important to keep life simple, and if I'm traveling, I only can do a couple of things, and those are the things that I'm meant to be doing.

I am not free because I can be exploded anytime.

Food won't go down when you know your mother didn't want you, never liked to feed you, always hated you in her rooms. You were wrong to clutch and swallow and move your mouth. You must not be flushed, layered in fat or ripe from meat or she will despise your sight. Your skeleton cries, "I make no demands, I am ashamed of my needs, I am unworthy. I'm aware of those more deserving, those with prior and urgent claims to food." Skeleton says, "My safety is in slightness, my pride is denial. My victory is no gluttony, no guilt.

Protect me from what I want.

If you are an artist and you are honest, you are never good enough.

I began to see that the short texts I was writing were poster material.

I wanted to be an abstract painter, but I was rotten at it.

If you have many desires your life will be interesting.

Enjoy yourself because you can't change anything anyway.

Sloppy thinking gets worse over time.

FEMALE VOICE: 'The truth is people are pushed around by two men who move all the bodies on earth into patterns that please them.'

MALE VOICE: 'I love my mind when it is fucking the cracks of events.'

MALE VOICE: 'What I give to all the people who do not want to live with me is arithmetic.'

FEMALE VOICE: 'Everyday, I do nothing important because I am scared blank and lazy. But then the men come. I put my mouth on them. I spit and write with the wet.'

MALE VOICE: 'I was not born live. This body grew but I did not feel cells split.

IT'S NO FUN WATCHING PEOPLE WOUND
THEMSELVES SO THAT THEY CAN HOLE UP,
NURSE THEMSELVES BACK TO HEALTH,
AND REPEAT THE CYCLE.
THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.

What urge will save us now that sex won't?

An elite is inevitable.

Stupid people shouldn't breed.

BY YOUR RESPONSE TO DANGER IT IS
EASY TO TELL HOW YOU HAVE LIVED
AND WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO YOU.
YOU SHOW WHETHER YOU WANT TO STAY ALIVE,
WHETHER YOU THINK YOU DESERVE TO,
AND WHETHER YOU BELIEVE
IT'S ANY GOOD TO ACT.

A sense of duty imprisons you.

Knowing yourself lets you understand others.

Use what is dominant in a culture to change it quickly.