JR Quotes

I was a pretty free-spirited kid. I was part of a notorious group of troublemakers who didn't do well in school but had a great time exploring Beijing from the inside out.

We danced on the lip of the volcano, so to speak. We were young, too. And New York was still a big, open city where anything could happen and anyone could be star. Rents were cheap, creativity was encouraged, and bottle service was still 20 years away. That was the era the Club Kids came into.

I love graffiti because it enables kids from every social extraction to do something that brings them closer to art, when they normally wouldn't be stimulated to be visually creative. Graffiti helps to develop an awareness of immediate expressive and uncontrolled freedom.

I got my first leopard print coat when I was 15. I nearly got beat up, but I was happy with it.

My first walk illegally at 20 years old was between the towers of Notre Dame.

When I was fifteen years old, my dad won a video camera in a corporate golf tournament. I snatched it from his closet and began filming skateboard videos with my friends.

As a kid, I was mischievous, necessarily, but I always wanted to do adventurous stuff.

The world is just waiting to be skated.

I'm a painter. I was a graffiti artist, and I painted all over the world.

To romp along the connected rooftops and fire escapes of Chicago's second city of garages was my young life's passion.

When I was 15, my parents left town for a month. They hid the keys to the car, but I found them. That month, I drove my stepdad's Thunderbird Super Coupe into Manhattan every day, and I would crank Cypress Hill as I flew around the city, racing the taxis.

Me and my mates go free running all the time. It's not my mum's favourite sport. I've probably jumped four metres on to grass and two metres between buildings. It's nothing like you see on the Internet, with guys jumping off skyscrapers, but it's fun.

I grew up in a very small town and didn't realise till later that I had an adventurous side. When I went to theatre school at 18, I came into my own and let loose.

I grew up around New York, graffiti culture.

Around 16 I began going out with friends to the city. That's where the action was. We would go to this place on Times Square - real shifty - and get fake IDs made up.

As I got older, I lived right next next to the Long Island Railroad, so in junior high and high school I'd just jump on the train with friends and head to the city. We'd run away from the conductors, hide from them in the bathroom. It was just what you did.

We'd be doing parkour on my high school roof; we'd get in trouble. But I was never a reckless kid.

I was brought up in south London and I started out in the world of graffiti when I was about 14 because I wanted to be part of that hooded tracksuit gang thing.

I like to mix it up, so I do Parkour, play football, dance... I am a dancer, essentially.

What's skateable is limitless by design.

Is graffiti art or vandalism? That word has a lot of negative connotations and it alienates people, so no, I don't like to use the word 'art' at all.

As a street artist, I'm used to sharing my stuff with the public. It's a communal experience. I've learned not to be so precious, but rather to enjoy the process.

People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish... but that's only if it's done properly.

Most climbers aren't in fact deranged, they're just infected with a particularly virulent strain of the Human Condition.