Cindy Sherman

“I think people are more apt to believe photographs, especially if it's something fantastic. They're willing to be more gullible. Sometimes they want fantasy.”

“I think I always resented the fact that people thought I was trying to entertain them with my multifaceted, chameleonlike character changes. Although I liked doing that, I wasn't out to fool people and say 'Guess which one is me.'”

“My dad was such a bigot. He was a horrible, self-centred person. He was really racist and he'd talk about the Jews and blacks and Catholics even.”

“Quite often, I will do something and think, 'Oh, no, she looks a little too much like me.' I have tried to learn not to be afraid of that when that happens. I am not trying to obliterate myself and completely hide within the images like I used to.”

“The more horrific works came out of a feeling that everyone accepted my stuff too easily. I was deliberately trying to be antagonistic towards collectors and critics.”

“I have had a lifelong fascination with horror movies, scary movies, how they work.”

“It is not like adding wrinkles to look older; it is using the wrinkles I already have to say something else. What is disturbing is not seeing more lines on my face but seeing that the range of possibilities of what I can do is much more limited.”

“I'll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I'm really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.”

“I had to redo my last house after the pipes burst, and something was lost in the renovation. The soul of the old space was compromised.”

“I want there to be hints of narrative everywhere in the image so that people can make up their own stories about them. But I don't want to have my own narrative and force it on to them.”

“We're all products of what we want to project to the world. Even people who don't spend any time, or think they don't, on preparing themselves for the world out there - I think that ultimately they have for their whole lives groomed themselves to be a certain way, to present a face to the world.”

“I always need to get away from whatever it is I've just finished, to feel a distance from it.”

“I didn't have any interest in traditional art.”

“I'm really just using the mirror to summon something I don't even know until I see it.”

“People think because it's photography it's not worth as much, and because it's a woman artist, you're still not getting as much - there's still definitely that happening. I'm still really competitive when it comes to, I guess, the male painters and male artists. I still think that's really unfair.”

“Inconsiderate, rude behavior drives me nuts. And I guess the inconsiderate rudeness of social ineptitude definitely fuels my work.”

“People assume that a self-portrait is narcissistic and you're trying to reveal something about yourself: fantasies or autobiographical information. In fact, none of my work is about me or my private life.”

“The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.”

“Every time you have to come up with a new body of work for a new show, you're aware that people are just ready to rip you apart, they're just waiting for you to fall or make the slightest trip up.”

“I realised that in my last two bodies of work - the mural and the Chanel pieces - that I didn't use any make-up because I was changing the faces digitally, and I realised I missed make-up in a major way.”