This one is genuinely his. The line sits in Warhol’s own book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), first published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in August 1975; Wikiquote’s sourced list places it in Ch. 7, “Time” ↗. One caveat worth keeping: like most of that book, it began as Warhol talking into a tape recorder rather than Warhol writing at a desk.
“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself” They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. — Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), ch. 7, “Time.”
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In context
Evoking the world of Andy Warhol — American Pop artist, filmmaker and author. Theme: "They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The source
Work
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again)
Chapter
Ch. 7, “Time”
First published
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, August 1975
How it was made
Drawn from taped interviews Pat Hackett recorded with Warhol, and conversations Warhol taped with Bob Colacello and Brigid Berlin
They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
Ch. 7: Time
Wikiquote’s sourced text keeps the word “that” after “They always say.” The 1975 first edition is scanned at the Internet Archive but access-restricted to borrowers, so the surrounding page could not be reproduced or machine-searched for this dossier — which is why the citation stops at the chapter rather than a page.
Wikiquote’s Andy Warhol page ↗ lists the sentence in its sourced 1970s section, under the subheading for The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), 1975, with the citation “Ch. 7: Time.” It is not in any misattributed or disputed grouping.
Wikipedia’s article on the book ↗ confirms publication by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in August 1975 and records that much of the material was drawn from taped interviews Pat Hackett did with Warhol for the book, plus conversations Warhol taped with Bob Colacello and Brigid Berlin.
The Internet Archive’s copy ↗ is a 266-page scan of the 1975 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich first edition. It is an access-restricted, borrow-only item, so it could not be full-text searched here; the chapter citation above rests on Wikiquote’s sourced entry.
Quote Investigator’s Warhol file ↗ has no entry for this line — its Warhol investigations concern the fame sayings and the “genius with an IQ of 85” jab. No source anywhere credits this sentence to anyone but Warhol.
The sentence comes from a book first published in August 1975, which puts it firmly under United States copyright — a 1975 work will not reach the public domain for decades yet. Quote the line briefly with attribution; do not reproduce the chapter, and treat the Internet Archive scan as a borrowable library copy rather than an open text.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What travels next to it
Andy Warhol is one of the internet’s great quote magnets, so the first job here was to check whether this line belongs with the fakes. It doesn’t. But three things that sit close to it are worth untangling, because they are the reason a Warhol attribution deserves a second look by default.
✕
How the sentence was madeAndy Warhol, sitting down to write spoken, then edited
The cover says Warhol and the line is his, but the picture most readers have is wrong. Wikipedia names Pat Hackett and Bob Colacello as the book’s ghostwriters ↗ and records that much of the material came from taped interviews Hackett did with Warhol for the book, plus conversations Warhol taped with Colacello and Brigid Berlin. Tape recorder, not typewriter.
✕
“In the future everyone will be anonymous for fifteen minutes”Andy Warhol not his
“Famous for 15 minutes”Andy Warhol, in one fixed wording no canonical text
Even his most famous saying has no single authorised sentence. Quote Investigator found that Warhol is properly credited with more than one version of the saying ↗ — which is exactly why a chapter-level citation, like the one on this page, is worth more than a confident-sounding page number.
✓This one holds up. Wikiquote’s sourced list ↗ puts the sentence in Ch. 7, “Time,” of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975) — a book with Warhol’s name on the cover and his voice on the tapes.
Context
Why the chapter matters
Chapter 7 of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol is called “Time,” and it is the closest the book comes to a self-help chapter — which is presumably why this sentence escaped it and went on to a second life on posters, mugs and LinkedIn. In its original company it reads less like encouragement and more like a complaint about people who wait.
The chapter’s neighbours give it that edge. Wikiquote files three other passages under the same “Ch. 7: Time” citation ↗: the one about flying to a European ball and remembering only the car ride, the one about saying “So what” to your own miseries, and the one about eating a box of candy while impatient for the last piece. Warhol’s theme in the chapter is that time does not deliver, it just elapses.
The chapter is called “Time.” Warhol’s point in it is that time will not do the work for you.
How the book was actually made
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) reached print through Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in August 1975. Wikipedia’s account of the book names Pat Hackett and Bob Colacello as its ghostwriters ↗ and records that much of the material was drawn from taped interviews Hackett did with Warhol specifically for the book, along with conversations Warhol had taped between himself and Colacello and Brigid Berlin.
That does not make the line less Warhol’s — it is his book, his voice and his sentence — but it does explain why it reads like speech. The aphorisms in the book have the cadence of someone thinking out loud with a recorder running, which is exactly the quality that makes them so easy to lift out and quote alone.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1928–1987 · American Pop artist, filmmaker and author
Andy Warhol turned soup cans, Brillo boxes and silkscreened celebrities into the defining images of American Pop art, then spent the 1970s running the Factory as a portrait studio, a film company and the magazine Interview. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol is his aphorism book — short, flat, deadpan chapters on love, beauty, fame, work, time and death. The flatness is the trick: the lines that outlived him, this one included, read like shrugs that turn out to be arguments.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Book
Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), chap. 7, “Time.”
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself’?” Last verified 24 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/they-always-say-that-time-changes-things-but-you-actually/