Quotes from Grayson Perry

My job is to make meaning. To make meaning in a meaningless world.

I always think that painters are fighting over the last original brushstroke. To find your own voice is incredibly hard.

I think I grew up in an 'acultural' household - no books, no paintings, never went to an art gallery. I say that, but of course we had the TV.

Security and care of the objects is paramount. Arty composition comes after everything is safe from greasy fingers, humidity or excess light.

Pottery was what sandal-wearing, windchime-lovers did. Art is sensitive to areas of visual culture that havent yet been colonised by the art world, and perhaps what they sensed back then was, here was an area that hadnt been fully explored.

I think of colour sense as the visual equivalent of perfect pitch. Some people can just reach into a pile of swatches and say that looks nice with that.

Well, within my business, visual art, the intake is 75 per cent female and yet you look at who has showed their work and I think there still is a dominance of males.

You don't work in a vacuum. If you're a visual artist you work in a visual culture. If you're a pop musician you listen to pop music. If you're an artist you should know about the art world.

Artists have their very distinctive voices that theyve developed over a long period. It takes time to find your voice, your vocabulary of images, or whatever it is.

My mother is a strong person. She's funny but volatile, with a pretty bad temper.

Well it's interesting because we use the word brand in a very derogatory way a lot of the time. I do it as much as anyone. But i think a brand is also sort of like momentum; it gets you through the bad patches if you've got a good brand.

I think Im addicted to periods of doubt and low confidence. I think you should worry if you dont have them because then youre not trying hard enough.

People are always happy to tell you what they think of as bad taste, but when you ask them what they really like themselves, theyre suddenly very vulnerable.

Being vulnerable is the absolute key to having good relationships. And good relationships are the key to being happy.

My father was a keen photographer; he had his own darkroom.

From birth until I went to art college when I was 19, there are perhaps less than a dozen photographs of me.

And it's been one of my big sort of campaigns throughout my career, really, is to sort of make art accessible but without dumbing it down. You know, art - the more you know about it, the more you enjoy it.

I cant make art to please everybody all the time. I make art that I like.

When we talk of identity, we often think of groups such as black Muslim lesbians in wheelchairs. This is because identity only seems to become an issue when it is challenged or under threat.

We have this idea that seriousness is of higher value. But surely there is more human pleasure and delight in time spent with humour than with pondering the great philosophical ideas.

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.

Of course I can change a plug. But my father would not only know how to change a plug, he could have rewired the house, built the back wall. Its a generational thing.

Culture is a collaborative exercise, and I think everybody will do their bit to help it grow.

For me, earnestness is the greatest crime an Englishman can commit.