Chris Burden quotes

“I still collect toys. Toys are a reflection of society. They are the tools that society uses to teach and enculturate children into the adult world. Toys are not innocent.”
-- Chris Burden

Source : Interview with Sonia Campagnola and Valentina Sansone, www.flashartonline.com. 2009.

#Children Quotes #Reflection Quotes #Adults Quotes

“Nail me to my car and I'll tell you who you are”
-- Chris Burden

#Car Quotes #Nails Quotes #Who You Are Quotes

“The speeding toy cars produce in the viewer the stress of living in a dynamic, active and bustling 21st-century city,”
-- Chris Burden

Source : "Metropolis II: A Kinetic Sculpture That Circulates 100,000 Miniature Cars Every Hour", www.thisiscolossal.com. March 3, 2014.

#Stress Quotes #Cities Quotes #Car Quotes

“At 6 p.m. I stood in the doorway of my studio facing the Venice boardwalk. A few spectators watched as I pushed two live electric wires into my chest. The wires crossed and exploded, burning me but saving me from electrocution.”
-- Chris Burden

Source : Chris Burden, Alberta College of Art. Gallery (1976). “Chris Burden, February 18, 1976”

#Two Quotes #Venice Quotes #Wire Quotes

“At 7:45 p.m. I was shot in the left arm by a friend. The bullet was a copper jacket 22 long rifle. My friend was standing about fifteen feet from me.”
-- Chris Burden

Source : Chris Burden, Anne Ayres, Paul Schimmel, Newport Harbor Art Museum (1988). “Chris Burden: a twenty-year survey”

#Feet Quotes #Long Quotes #Rifles Quotes

“The usual sniggering examples of animal behaviour were brought in to explain cheating. Funny how the behaviour of shrews and gibbons is never used to explain table manners or road safety or gardening, only sex. Anyway, it was bad Darwinism. Taking the example of a monkey and applying it to yourself misses the point that animal behaviour is made for the benefit of the species, not as an excuse for the individual. Being incapable of sustaining a stable pair and supporting children is really not in the interests of our species. Neither is it really in the best interests of the philanderer.”

“To the Parisians, and especially to the children, all Americans are now 'heros du cinema.' This is particularly disconcerting to sensitive war correspondents, if any, aware, as they are, that these innocent thanks belong to those American combat troops who won the beachhead and then made the breakthrough. There are few such men in Paris.”

“I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, "What happened next?”

“Elderly gentlemen, gentle in all respects, kind to animals, beloved by children, and fond of music, are found in lonely corners of the downs, hacking at sandpits or tussocks of grass, and muttering in a blind, ungovernable fury elaborate maledictions which could not be extracted from them by robbery or murder. Men who would face torture without a word become blasphemous at the short fourteenth. It is clear that the game of golf may well be included in that category of intolerable provocations which may legally excuse or mitigate behavior not otherwise excusable.”

“A lot of negative words adults call the young, like 'naive,' 'impulsive' and 'way too connected online,' are all things we can turn into strengths to help us.”

“The traits the word 'childish' addresses are seen so often in adults that we should abolish this age-discriminatory word when it comes to criticizing behavior associated with irresponsibility and irrational thinking.”

Source : "12-year-old author: Don't say 'childish'" by John D. Sutter, www.cnn.com. April 15, 2010.

“Even if there was such a thing as a half-price sale at the local Ming outlet shop, she would have to work ten lifetimes to make up such a sum. Always supposing that it wasn't one of a kind. Panic was no longer merely rearing. It was thundering through her at full throttle. There was only one thing to be done, she realized. The mature, responsible, adult thing to do. Hide the evidence.”

“Regression to the stage of early infancy is not a suitable method in and of itself. Such a regression can only be effective if it happens in the natural course of therapy and if the client is able to maintain adult consciousness at the same time.”

“When I was growing up in the 1960s, there was starting to be more books geared towards young adults.”

“You should stop and listen to yourselves sometimes. 'We're practically adults, let us run wild.' 'We're only kids, leave us alone.'...You can't have it both ways.”