Some lovey-dovey quotes from our favorite contemporary creators to get you through Valentine’s Day. Feel free to filch for extra points with the art lover in your life.

  • “The heart is a museum, filled with the exhibits of a lifetime’s loves.” —Diane Ackerman

  • “Love is the greatest refreshment in life.” —Pablo Picasso

  • “Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.” —Diane Arbus

“The best love is not-to-think-about-it love.”

Andy Warhol

  • “A lot of people seem to think that art or photography is about the way things look, or the surface of things. That’s not what it’s about for me. It’s really about relationships and feelings…” —Nan Goldin
  • “Fantasy love is much better than reality love.” —Andy Warhol
  • “We never stop silently loving those who we once loved out loud.” —Marina Abramovic

Whenever you make love to someone, there should be three people involved – you, the other person, and the devil.”

Robert Mapplethorpe

  • “I want to throw up because we’re supposed to quietly and politely make house in this killing machine called America and pay taxes to support our own slow murder and I’m amazed we’re not running amok in the streets, and that we can still be capable of gestures of loving after lifetimes of all this.” —David Wojnarowicz
  • “People should fall in love with their eyes closed.” —Andy Warhol
  • “True love for whatever you are doing is the answer to everything.” —Marina Abramovic

I told the students [at Yale] we were going to talk about love – I meant love in the sense of devotions to one’s work – and about half the students got really pissed off.

Kiki Smith

  • “My knives are like a tongue – I love, I do not love, I hate. If you don’t love me, I am ready to attack. I am a double-edged knife.” ―Louise Bourgeois