An artist has to go to every extreme, to stretch his sensibility through excess and suffering in order to feel and to communicate more. – Sebastian Horsley
Pain can be vitalising; it gives intensity in the place of vagueness and emptiness. If we don’t suffer, how do we know that we live? – Sebastian Horsley
I like living sparsely. In the main room, there’s no furniture – no tables, no chairs, no coffee table – not even a decaffeinated coffee table. – Sebastian Horsley
Dandyism is a lie which reveals the truth, and the truth is that we are what we pretend to be. – Sebastian Horsley
I am not an intellectual. An intellectual is someone who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso, whereas I just say ‘pass the mustard’. – Sebastian Horsley
If someone thinks I’m posh, it just shows how lowly they are. Some people think I went to Eton. I’m far too stupid to get into Eton. – Sebastian Horsley
I think you are born, and I think you die. I have a pragmatic nature, but I yearn to believe. – Sebastian Horsley
My theory is that the way you cope with the depths will ascertain the heights that you reach – they are intimately connected – and if you have a lust for life, you are also going to have a lust for death. – Sebastian Horsley
My grandfather was a practising Quaker. My father was a nihilist. But nihilism, if you like, is the beginning of faith anyway. – Sebastian Horsley
Being a dandy is a condition rather than a profession. It is a defense against suffering and a celebration of life. – Sebastian Horsley
I used to have about a hundred suits in my late twenties and early thirties when my stock was riding high and I was rich. – Sebastian Horsley
I do a lot of things for effect, which is not to say I am superficial, but that I know how to put ideas across. – Sebastian Horsley
Think of how many boring, blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretion of me. – Sebastian Horsley
You may look back on your life and accept it as good or evil. But it is far, far harder to admit that you have been completely unimportant; that in the great sum of things, all a man’s endless grapplings are no more significant than the scuttlings of a cockroach. – Sebastian Horsley
I keep the shutters closed because I like to work in a hermetic environment. I like mirrors. When you look out of the window, all you see is ugliness, but when you look in the mirror all you see is beauty. – Sebastian Horsley
I am a fraud. I have cobbled together my personality from hundreds of little bits. I am simultaneously the most genuine and the most artificial person you will ever meet. – Sebastian Horsley
If I want to dislike women, I should be allowed to. As it happens, I love them. Women to me are privately worshipped and publicly disdained. – Sebastian Horsley
The universe is neither friendly nor hostile. It is merely indifferent. This makes me ecstatic. – Sebastian Horsley
