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Graffiti Quotes

Browse 168 quotes about Graffiti.

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Graffiti Quotes

“If you disagree with something, it's easier to say 'you suck' than to figure out and explain exactly what you disagree with. You're also safe that way from refutation. In this respect trolling is a lot like graffiti. Graffiti happens at the intersection of ambition and incompetence: people want to make their mark on the world, but have no other way to do it than literally making a mark on the world.”

DesperationSimileGraffitiTrollTrollsTrollingPoor TasteSimilesAnti Art
Author:Paul Graham
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“Graffiti is the art of the people. It is a language without clear official status, but whose instinctive quality testifies to the honesty of human experience and the true nobility of art. Often marked with a sense of eroticism and violence, the wall conserves something pure and sacred about the human story.”

ArtSufferingHumanityViolenceHuman NatureHonestySelf ExpressionGraffitiHuman LanguageEroticism
Book:In Search for Meaning
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“The primal need for self-expression and documentation has appeared in human beings since the dawn of humankind. Our ancestors began carving shapes on rocks more than 40,000 years ago, and now graffiti has become a popular urban medium for self-proclamation an evidence of one’s egoic identity reinforcement, an innate desire to pronounce oneself and leave a mark in the world. The wall is a sacred place. Containing layers and layers of joy and pain, it is a collective scream on the voice of humanity; it is raw, vulnerable, and real.”

SufferingHumanityIdentityWallEgoSelf ExpressionGraffitiSacredness
Book:In Search for Meaning
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“Whom one is speaking to - or which aspect of their character - fundamentally determines the meaning and consequences of an exhortation. 'Indulge Your Desires' comes across very differently on a billboard advertising SUVs than it does spray-painted across the broken windows of an SUV dealer. It follows that what you say is not nearly as important as how and when you say it.”

CharacterSpeechAnarchyConsumerismConsequencesAnarchismGraffitiBillboardsCrimethinc
Book:Contradictionary
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“The Final Word by Stewart Stafford On the wall of a prominent jacks, Came anonymous, scurrilous attacks, Innuendo and defamatory jibes, Scrawled by cowardly scribes, Dared the executioner’s axe. And whoever wrote the indecent graffiti, Would never say it to the King in a meeting, He’d cry: ‘Off with their heads,’ Then sleep safely in bed, Having the final word takes some beating. And as they walked to an undignified death, No sarcastic words came from their breath, They were up for the chop, On the executioner’s block, And would plead it was all for a bet. So if you’ve ill words planned, Remember to keep them in hand, Or the butt of your jokes, Becomes your executioner’s host, And that’s the end of your brand. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.”

PoetryPoemKarmaExecutionGraffitiInnuendoDefamationLimerickEmperor S New ClothesCut Down To Size
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Sooner or later, all talk among foreigners in Pyongyang turns to one imponderable subject. Do the locals really believe what they are told, and do they truly revere Fat Man and Little Boy? I have been a visiting writer in several authoritarian and totalitarian states, and usually the question answers itself. Someone in a café makes an offhand remark. A piece of ironic graffiti is scrawled in the men's room. Some group at the university issues some improvised leaflet. The glacier begins to melt; a joke makes the rounds and the apparently immovable regime suddenly looks vulnerable and absurd. But it's almost impossible to convey the extent to which North Korea just isn't like that. South Koreans who met with long-lost family members after the June rapprochement were thunderstruck at the way their shabby and thin northern relatives extolled Fat Man and Little Boy. Of course, they had been handpicked, but they stuck to their line. There's a possible reason for the existence of this level of denial, which is backed up by an indescribable degree of surveillance and indoctrination. A North Korean citizen who decided that it was all a lie and a waste would have to face the fact that his life had been a lie and a waste also. The scenes of hysterical grief when Fat Man died were not all feigned; there might be a collective nervous breakdown if it was suddenly announced that the Great Leader had been a verbose and arrogant fraud. Picture, if you will, the abrupt deprogramming of more than 20 million Moonies or Jonestowners, who are suddenly informed that it was all a cruel joke and there's no longer anybody to tell them what to do. There wouldn't be enough Kool-Aid to go round. I often wondered how my guides kept straight faces. The streetlights are turned out all over Pyongyang—which is the most favored city in the country—every night. And the most prominent building on the skyline, in a town committed to hysterical architectural excess, is the Ryugyong Hotel. It's 105 floors high, and from a distance looks like a grotesquely enlarged version of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco (or like a vast and cumbersome missile on a launchpad). The crane at its summit hasn't moved in years; it's a grandiose and incomplete ruin in the making. 'Under construction,' say the guides without a trace of irony. I suppose they just keep two sets of mental books and live with the contradiction for now.”

DeathGriefJokesUniversityArchitectureIronyPropagandaDissentTotalitarianismNorth KoreaSurveillanceMind ControlAuthoritarianismIndoctrinationGraffitiSouth KoreaKim Jong IlKim Il SungDoublethinkJonestownPyongyangKoreansTourism In North KoreaDrinking The Kool AidMooniesRyugyong Hotel
Book:Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays
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“However, if he really wanted to bust me, all he had to do was ask to see my schoolbooks. The front and back covers are the first place graffiti artists start to draw.”

GraffitiSchool TeachersBustedSmall BeginningsPolice WorkSolving CrimeCrime DetectionSchool BooksArresting A ProblemDrawing BooksGraffiti ArtistsGraffiti In SchoolsSolving MattersTurf WarWall MarkingsWriting On Walls
Book:The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father
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“What treasures lay inside! Yes, here were the colors that she had asked for: red, pink, yellow, blue, green, black- all in powder form, of course, not like the one or two bottles of liquid food color that were available at the Lebanese supermarket in town; those were not at all modern- some big blocks of marzipan, and, as always, June had included some new things for Angel to try. This time there were three tubes that looked rather like thick pens. She picked one upend examined it: written along its length were the words 'Gateau Graffito,' and underneath, written in uppercase letters, was the word 'red.' Reaching for the other two pens- one marked 'green' and the other 'black'- she saw a small printed sheet lying at the bottom of the bubblewrap nest. It explained that these pens were filled with food color, and offered a picture showing how they could be used to write fine lines or thick lines, depending on how you held them. It also guaranteed that the contents were kosher. Eh, now her cakes were going to be more beautiful than ever!”

CakeColorsGraffitiAngel TungarazaFood Colours
Book:Baking Cakes in Kigali
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“I like to leave little notes, around as I have traveled. It's like a semi-permanent graffiti for the soul. You know, some words or thoughts for a person's commute home, or the waitress that has been picking up people's sloppy plates all day, maybe even a mom watching her kids play in the park. You never know what is on a person's mind...maybe dread, or hate, or sorrow, or even nothing. I only hope some little thing makes them feel a bit better.”

SoulFeelingsHateSorrowNotesDreadGraffiti
Author:Owen D. Hill
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“Nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.”

PeopleCommonTalentDeterminationPerseverancePersistenceProcrastinationPersistKey To SuccessMy AttitudeExamUnsuccessfulGraffitiOmnipotentDetermination And SuccessWill And DeterminationResiliencyDetermination PerseveranceKnowledge EducationEducation And KnowledgePerseverance And DeterminationInspirational PerseveranceDetermination And PersistenceWill To SucceedPerseverencePersistence InspirationalTalent And GeniusMotivation And DeterminationDesire To AchieveStreet ArtStrength And PerseveranceCourage And DeterminationWall And PiecePerseverance MotivationalCool StatusExam MotivationalDerelictPersistence In BusinessPersistence LoveAdversity And PerseveranceGraffiti ArtGraffiti ArtistPersistence And LoveFunny ExamSingle StatusPressing OnStrength And DeterminationClass StatusPeople LeavingWasted TalentBanging Your HeadStatus Updates
Author:Calvin Coolidge
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“The difference between what we see and a sheet of white paper with a few thin lines on it is very great. Yet this abstraction is one which we seem to have adopted almost instinctively at an early stage in our development, not only in Neolithic graffiti but in early Egyptian drawings. And in spite of its abstract character, the outline is responsive to the least tremor of sensibility.”

CharacterSeemsDifferencesLinesWhiteStageDevelopmentPaperDrawingAbstractSpiteSensibilitySheetsAbstractionAdoptedOutlinesEgyptianGraffitiWhite Paper
Book:The romantic rebellion: romantic versus classic art
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