The provocative artist on the end of his feud with Charles Saatchi, and the sons following in his footsteps

Your new exhibition features 120 framed butterfly prints. Are you a butterfly obsessive?

I've always liked that kind of natural history. I'm interested, first of all, in the fact they all look alive when they're dead. They represent the soul.

The writer Michael Bracewell has said that you are "primarily a great religious artist". Do you agree?

Did he say that? Erm, I wouldn't say that, no. I think I like big issues, but I don't believe in God or religion. Having said that, I was brought up Catholic till I was 12 – basically indoctrinated – so there are lots of things in there that can't come out. My dad wasn't religious but mum was. Dad wouldn't go to church. They divorced when I was 12 and you can't carry on being Catholic if you're divorced so that's when I began thinking, "That's a pile of crap."

I mean, religion is serious shit, isn't it? We're all trying to find our way through the darkness in our lives. Religion can be one part of that. For me, I like a bit of everything: a bit of art, science and religion.

As an adolescent, you were arrested for shoplifting and went through a rebellious phase. Was that related to abandoning Catholicism?

No. Crime is creative. Or it can be.

A lot of your work features images of death. Are you morbid?

I don't think so. I was taught to confront things you can't avoid. Death is one of those things. To live in a society where you're trying not to look at it is stupid because looking at death throws us back into life with more vigour and energy. The fact that flowers don't last for ever makes them beautiful.

Is it true you had a job as a mortuary assistant?

No, it was an anatomy museum. I just got a letter from art school telling me to go along and draw some bodies. The corpses don't look like dead bodies because they've been preserved in formaldehyde and all their heads have been shaved. I was very nervous about seeing them but when I actually went, it was quite hard to believe they were bodies. There was no blood, no hair and no personality – it wasn't like someone you knew had died.

Are you drawn to art because it holds out the possibility of immortality: the idea that you will live on through your work?

It's quite a strange thought. When you start off, you wish you were successful and well known. Then you get to the point where enough people have bought your art to realise that it's going to last longer than you do. We're all looking for a type of permanence but I think I'd like to live longer than the work, actually – don't tell anyone that. There's no way I can. I've done some work in bronze and that can survive 6,000 years.

Is great art more about conception or execution?

Great art – or good art – is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different. There's boring conceptual art and there's boring traditional art. Great art is if you can't stop thinking about it, then it becomes a memory.

You have repeatedly been accused of plagiarism. Is there any truth to the claims?

It's just gibberish, isn't it? Just ridiculous. It's nothing really.

So is it ever possible to have a truly original idea?

As an artist, you make a comment about what it is to be alive today. Van Gogh can't do that because he's dead. You look at movies or any kind of art form, there's influence, isn't there? That movie, The Cell, it came out a few years ago and they had a piece of "my" art in there that was a sliced-up horse. It's a tribute apparently.

An auction of your work two years ago bypassed galleries and sold directly to the public, raising a record-breaking £111m. Is money important to you?

I think money is important for everyone, because the lack of it is so painful. I worked very hard to make sure that money was not my goal but a by-product of what I was doing. I had a very good manager who told me to use the money to chase the art, rather than the art to chase the money.

You once said: "I can't wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it." Have you got there yet?

I don't think that really happens. Even a bad idea becomes a good idea. I believe in freedom and I wanted to be able to do anything, that's what that quote is about. Although I did have an idea to do a huge bronze human shit, 40ft long, and call it "Untitled – No 2".

Does it ever get boring painting spots?

Yeah, I only painted the first five [spot paintings], then I hired other people to do them.

Do your children [Connor, 15, Cassius, 10, and Cyrus, five] like your work?

Yeah, they love it. I've always tried to build in a "wow" factor, because when I was growing up I remember being blown away by the natural history museum in Leeds. There were these stuffed Bengal tigers and tanks with fish in them, and I wanted to make art like that. Art is childish and childlike. Brancusi said: "When we are no longer children we are already dead."

Are they any good?

Yeah, they're brilliant. One of them got a TV box the other day and a coloured umbrella, tied it round a chair, put his picture in the box and said: "I've got a studio now." I wanted to use it as a sculpture but he wouldn't let me.

Have you made up with Charles Saatchi after calling him "childish" and saying "he only recognises art with his wallet"?

Yes, we're good. I had dinner with him a while ago with Martin Amis. He was disappointed that I'd stopped smoking.

Do you own a Nigella cookbook?

I don't think I do. Maybe I should?

They're half-price at the moment in Waterstone's...

I'll do that then. I'll get one.

Interview by Elizabeth Day

Damien Hirst: The Souls is at Paul Stolper gallery (in collaboration with Other Criteria), London WC1 from 7 Oct–13 Nov