I recently read a book on The Philosophy of Andy Warhol ("from A to B and back again"), and although some of it is clearly filler and there's no real structure, I was more impressed with his ideas than I'd expected. I always thought he was pretentious, but I changed my mind.
He had a discussion with a friend in which the friend mentioned that artists had to say risks. Warhol said, "If you say that artists take risks, it's insulting to the men who landed on D-Day, to stunt men, to baby-sitters, to Evel Knievel, to stepdaughters, to coal miners and to hitch-hikers because they are the ones who really know what risks are." He added, "She didn't even hear me, she was still thinking about what glamorous 'risks' artists take.
Puts things into perspective, doesn't it!
I also think his take on success makes a lot of sense:
"Nothing happens until you're past the point where you care whether it happens or not. ...I guess it's for our own good that it always happens that way, because after you stop wanting things is when having them won't make you go crazy. After you stop wanting them is when you can handle having them. ...If you get things when you really want them, you go crazy. Everything becomes distorted when something you really want is sitting in your lap."
