Antony Gormley

“I think it's probably the Dutch who are to blame for starting the whole 'art business', because before they came along, art was attached to relatively stable structures, and it was everybody's. It was like going to the movies.”

“Due to the failure of politics, which has become a process of middle-management, art has become one of the last open spaces to question core beliefs and to design a viable future. Art becomes an open space where we can ask fundamental questions about ourselves.”

“Most big cities like London and Glasgow have great big rivers that are unmissable. What's brilliant about the Water of Leith is that it's so hidden. It's a secret.”

“I was educated by monks - I thank them dearly for the education they gave me, but I am no longer a Catholic.”

“How do you make the timelessness of inert, silent objects count for something? How to use the, in a way, dumbness of sculpture in a way that acts on us as living things?”

“I would like to go to Kalimantan island in Sumatra to see the carvings and longhouse sculptures. I've also always wanted to look at the wood carvings along the Sepik River in New Guinea.”

“Art is the means by which we communicate what it feels like to be alive - in the past, that was mixed up with other illustrative duties, but that was still its central function that has been liberated in the art called modern.”

“I feel terribly misunderstood; I feel terribly misunderstood.”

“I would say that the whole way that I have approached the body is as a space, not a thing - not an object to be improved, idealised or whatever, but simply to be dwelt in.”

“I have to say that I reject somewhat the distinction between something called art and something called public art. I think all art demands and desires to be seen.”

“I just want my work to be part of the elemental world.”

“It is a depressing business talking to journalist.”

“I think scale is about, in a way, the apprehension of proportion, and all the proportions that mean things to us as human beings are related to the body.”

“Making beautiful things for everyday use is a wonderful thing to do - making life flow more easily - but art confronts life, allowing it to stop and perhaps change direction - they are completely different.”

“I always like to look for adventure when I go away. I have gone on several horse adventures with my wife - from Guangxi we went up to the High Tibetan region. We also went along the Hurunui River on horseback in the South Island of New Zealand.”

“It doesn't matter if you can't speak the same language. If you have pictures, or better still, if you can draw things, then you can communicate anything to anyone.”