Marina Abramovic quotes:

My mother and father had a terrible marriage. They celebrated their wedding anniversary one year with their friends. Why did they celebrate? Maybe because they had lasted so many years without killing each other.

When I was 14, I thought I looked terrible. I wore these typical Slavic shoes with metal bottoms so you could always hear me coming and this really ugly princess skirt and blouse with the top button closed. I had a boy haircut, a baby face covered with pimples, and a really big nose.

To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings just by changing your breathing.

Because of technology, we don't develop telepathy. We don't use telepathy, but use, you know, the mobile phones. Why?

I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She used to wake me up in the middle of the night if I wasn't sleeping straight and was messing up the sheets. Now when I stay in hotels I sleep so straight they don't even think I've used the bed.

The big problem of our modern society is that we feel that we are separated from the nature. But it's just the opposite. We are interrelated and our DNA is the same. And only when human beings understand that, the nature will not be obstacle.

I am not a therapist. I am not a spiritual leader. These elements are in the art: it is therapeutic, spiritual, social and political - everything. It has many layers. But art has to have many layers. If it doesn't, then forget it.

I notice if I'm too fat or if I'm too ugly or there's skin hanging or whatever. When my clothes start not fitting, I get really self-conscious about what I eat.

The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind.

To really change the way society thinks, you have to give your entire being to it until there's nothing left.

Today, our attention is less than the television advertisement. We're looking at six or seven problems constantly. We're living in the disturbed societies of cities. I think modern technology is one of the worst things human beings have invented.

Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being.

In every ancient culture, there are rituals to mortify the body as a way of understanding that the energy of the soul is indestructible.

People put so much effort into starting a relationship and so little effort into ending one.

You see, what is my purpose of performance artist is to stage certain difficulties and stage the fear the primordial fear of pain, of dying, all of which we have in our lives, and then stage them in front of audience and go through them and tell the audience, 'I'm your mirror; if I can do this in my life, you can do it in yours.'

Woody Allen has a wonderful line: 'Today I'm a star. What will I be tomorrow? A black hole?' That's very important to know - that you have the moment, then you lose the moment. You have to see your chances, you have to take them, and you also have to see when you don't have chances to take.

You know I very much respect Yvonne Rainer, she is very important - in American dance, the entire development of modern dance, and creating a wonderful physical language.

If you're a baker, making bread, you're a baker. If you make the best bread in the world, you're not an artist, but if you bake the bread in the gallery, you're an artist. So the context makes the difference.

I believe so much in the power of performance I don't want to convince people. I want them to experience it and come away convinced on their own.

If you see a Renaissance body, this is completely ugly in this time. Everybody has to be skinny. But the Renaissance body with incredible flow of the meat everywhere, it was beauty.

We make such terrible mistakes with visual choices about beauty.

I used to have a recurring dream where I was at a party in a country house, surrounded by the same people each evening. Everyone would be singing and dancing and after a while I came to know the people; though, of course, they never really existed.

We are used to cleaning the outside house, but the most important house to clean is yourself - your own house - which we never do.

Even now, I have traces of the good little girl. When I am not performing, for instance, I am really very quiet and ordinary.

You can't choreograph death, but you can choreograph your funeral.

I was friends with Susan Sontag the last four years of her life. She had this amazing charisma and so much energy, but she had a sad little funeral in Montparnasse in Paris. It was rainy. It was all wrong. And I was thinking, 'God, she loved life so much.'

Happiness is such a good state, it doesn't need to be creative. You're not creative from happiness, you're just happy. You're creative when you're miserable and depressed. You find the key to transform things. Happiness does not need to transform.

I'm interested in asking: 'What does feminine energy mean?' I don't have answers - I just have questions and interesting examples.

I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution.

For me, performance is a holy ground. When I perform, I really step into a different state of consciousness.

Time is an illusion. Time only exists when we think about the past and the future. Time doesn't exist in the present here and now.

All my inspiration comes from life. That's how it never stops, in a way.

If you do performance and music, it's not performance as music.

My grandmother, when she looked at American movies, she said, 'They're all the same. In the first scene somebody shoots somebody and then everybody makes phone calls.'

I don't know anything about the afterlife because I haven't been there yet.

Cancer is an emotional disease.

Being an artist is not easy - I have always said that to the students I have taught over the years. It's a huge sacrifice.

In my work I have complete control, but about my life, I don't want to.

The mind is crazy thing. To be focused is the most difficult thing.

The hardest thing to do is something that is close to nothing.

We are actually living in a million parallel realities every single minute.

You know how you feel somebody looking at you, and you turn, and somebody actually is? It's the same at an art gallery. You're looking at one portrait, turn around, and there is a work of art directly behind you. Because it's all energy. Every single thing has energy.

An artist has to look at the future, to see what we can do better.

Why am I not feminist? Maybe because I come from a country where my mother ruled my life. I never felt in any way that I couldn't achieve what I want.

The only theatre I do is my own. Somehow, my life is the only life that I can play.

The world doesn't need an artist who shows reality as it is.

Your ego can become an obstacle to your work. If you start believing in your greatness, it is the death of your creativity.

When Lady Gaga says I am her inspiration, you reach kids between 12 and 18. Now I am like a brand - jeans, Coca-Cola.

To me the pain and the blood are merely means of artistic expression.

I made a tape recording of a bridge collapsing and I wanted to play it suddenly and very loudly when people were walking over a big bridge in Belgrade. The council forbid it. Their imagination is tiny; mine is big. I want always to shake everything up.

I always sent my mother all these huge books I made. When my mother died, I was cleaning her cupboard, and these big books were only 20 pages long. She edited out, maybe burned, every single photograph where I'm naked.

You know, James Franco is one of the most interesting figures because he has no rules. He breaks all the borders.

First of all, to do performance art, you really have to give 100 percent. I only know that I have to give 100 percent and then what happens, happens.

A great artist has to be ready to fail.

What you get is the opening of your mind. I'm not preaching any new religion; I'm ritualizing everyday activities. You drink the water. You count the rice. You sit in Crystal Cave. You lie in Levitation Chamber. You push yourself to a new level.

The most revolutionary ideas are not sellable, but only mind-changing.

I am obsessive always, even as a child. On one side is this strict orthodox religion, on the other is communism, and I am this little girl pulled between the two. It makes me who I am. It turns me into the kind of person that Freud would have a field day with, for sure.

If you're a woman, it's almost impossible to establish a relationship. You're too much for everybody. It's too much. The woman always has to play this role of being fragile and dependent. And if you're not, they're fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave.

Once you live in New York, you can't live anywhere else. Living in Paris is like going in slow motion. It's so bourgeois. I get so bored.

When people ask me where I am from I never say, 'Serbia.' I always say, 'I come from a country that no longer exists.'

I am pure performance, and Robert Wilson is pure theater.

From the very early stage when I started doing performance art in the '70s, the general attitude - not just me, but also my colleagues - was that there should not be any documentation, that the performance itself is artwork and there should be no documentation.

I didn't get paid for performances most of my life. If I did, I would be billionaire now, and I'm not.

I am only interested in the ideas that become obsessive and make me feel uneasy. The ideas that I'm afraid of.

I really don't like art where you need to know so much theory to understand. If the theory is removed, it doesn't do anything. That means that this work is an illustration of theory, and I don't believe in the power of the work itself.

Performance is there, and if you are not there in that moment it happened, it just stays in the memory. It's so immaterial and something this immaterial is very difficult to collect. Its difficult to buy, its how we can buy immaterial art.

It's very important that young artists push boundaries, because sometimes you have this urge to do something - like the impulsive and dangerous urges I had as a child - and if you don't follow through with it you might miss out on a developmental experience.

We always project into the future or reflect in the past, but we are so little in the present.

With classical ballet you are literally injuring yourself.

In theater, blood is ketchup; in performance, everything's real.

I hate kitchens. I don't understand these enormous American kitchens that take up half the living room and then they just order pizza.

Performance has to be mainstream art. This is what I'm fighting for.

You know, everyone is always talking about plastic surgery, or the technology, what to do. I really think it's important to help yourself with the technology if you want to feel better, but I am absolutely against any kind of monstrous cuts of the body, lifting that is beyond recognition, this kind of stuff.

When you have a nonverbal conversation with a total stranger, then he can't cover himself with words, he can't create a wall.

People ask why there are so few female artists who succeed. It's because women are not ready to sacrifice as much as men. Women want a man, they want a family, they want to have children, they want to be loved, and to be an artist. And they can't; it's impossible.

I really think there's no difference between an art piece made by a man and one made by a woman. Is it a good art piece or a bad art piece? Of course, if you're female, you're maybe dealing with different issues.

An artist should not fall in love with another artist.

The public is in need of experiences that are not just voyeuristic. Our society is in a mess of losing its spiritual centre.

I'm interested in utopian communities of the past. Many of them didn't survive and I'm examining closely the reasons they failed.

People have so much pain inside them that they're not even aware of.

A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room.

Americans aren't accepting of black humor, it's terrible.

Americans don't like European movies.

Art comes from life, not from the studio

Artists can do whatever they want!

Artists should never think of themselves as an idol. Fame is a side effect of one's work.

Because we never stop silently loving those who we once loved out loud

But what is art other than revealing human nature?

Dali Lama said, 'when you open the heart of the person with humor, you can tell him the most truth. But if you tell him truth without humor, the heart closes.'

Documentation is misleading, because the performance is dead. So the very early works were not documented at all.

Don't even ask me why. I do not know, I have no answer to this insane behaviour.

Every party is the same, too many people, too little food, and you have to wait around. I'm extremely bored with parties.

For me, the most difficult piece is the one I'm about to make.

From the moment you are born, you could die. I think as an artist it is important to meditate on that.

Galás is a great artist with a very powerful voice.

I am very clear that I am not a feminist. It puts you into a category and I don't like that.

I believe stories are very important to all performances. The life story of the performer shapes their work, and the life stories of the audience alter how they receive the work, what they read into the performer.

I believe that life is shorter; that is why we have to make experience longer.

I didn't give any instruction to the video, because it was a new medium. I didn't know what to tell him; it was so young. I did the piece and immediately after the piece, I wanted to see the material.

I had so much fear of blood, and the first thing I did was to cut myself to see what happens. That's the only way to rebuild yourself.

I had such an intense relationship to every person. I still see people on the street and we lock eyes, and say "Oh my god!" and we just kiss and stay like that and sometimes cry.

I had to leave some traces. In the beginning, I would give complete instructions to the photographer. In the '70s, people would come to photograph your work and you would just end up with this crazy material that had nothing to do with your work; maybe I'd pick up two or three photographs that were the closest to the idea. This is why when you look at the '70s, you see much less documentation and really bad material. The material will become misleading to what the piece was.

I hate repetition. Even when I am home and have to buy milk, I go a different way each time to avoid having a habit of anything. Habits are really bad. So to me it is really important to live in what I call the spaces in-between. Bus stations, trains, taxis or waiting rooms in airports are the best places because you are open to destiny, you are open to everything and anything can happen.

I have always staged my fears as a way to transcend them.

I never say Serbia. I always say I come from a country that no longer exists.

I realise the power of art that does not hang on the walls of galleries.

I really like dark, politically incorrect humor.

I say we don't need art in nature, because it's so perfect without us. We need it in the cities. But the cities have absolutely lost their own center. They think having ten cars and a big bridge is the way to happiness. It's not.

I serve like a bridge. I go to other cultures, learn, put myself in different situations and learn as much as I can, and then go to Western cultures to give. I'm doing this bridging all the time.

I think communication starts when words are not present at all ... I think we put so much emphasis on language, actually silence is so much more important.

I think if people raise their consciousness and find a purpose, everybody will be helped.

I think the role of artists in the past was very different. Artists had less responsibility in many ways.

I want to dominate the man's world.

If we consider art as oxygen in our society, we have to deliver this oxygen.

If we go for the easy way, then we never change

If you are really true to yourself and really follow your intuition in the most rigorous way, there is a moment that becomes universal, that reaches everybody. That's the real magic of Björk-she teaches us the courage to be ourselves.

If you look at the lives of artists, sitting in nature, painting, having the freedom. I think it's over. I think we're living in such a difficult moment of human development. Artists have more responsibility than ever before.

I'm talking about intellectually and emotionally challenging, but at the same time it's actually not that challenging. So there's this dichotomy.

Immaterial art is the strongest because there's no obstacle; there's just energy, and I believe in energy.

In every culture, [there are those] shamans or medicine men who endured incredible physical pain, because it's a door opening to the subconsciousness. And the way we can actually control the pain -- it's how to control everything. This is the key.