Marina Abramovic Quotes

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

That's something that I'm trying to do in my work, to send a message to western people. They're the ones who are completely disconnected.

I really like dark, politically incorrect humor.

We make such terrible mistakes with visual choices about beauty.

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

A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room.

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

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

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

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

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

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.'

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.

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

You know the movie "Rashomon" from [Takeshi] Kurosawa, when all the people in the forest see something different? Each performance was like that.

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

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.

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

Galás is a great artist with a very powerful voice.

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

Typically, the performance has a story - a beginning, the crescendo and the end.

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

My work is immaterial. It's not painting, it's not sculpture, it's emotions. I'm giving you something to experience yourself.

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

We're destroying the planet, and the planet rebels.

Cancer is an emotional disease.

There's nothing more tragic than artists from the 70s still doing art from the 70s.

We, performers, work on willpower. This willpower works in a short term, not durational.

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.

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.

We don't have politicians with dignity and morals. We never have, not since [Nelson] Mandela and [Mahatma ] Gandhi. It's really rare.

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.

Americans don't like European movies.

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

One thing I learned from his holiness the Dali Lama is the importance of humor.

People ask me what book politicians should read. They should read the life of Mahatma Gandhi.

I have a problem with being a hero, but that's another problem.

We always think of our own profit, but not in connection to others.

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

I always do big birthday things. In three years, I'm 70. I'm going to do something outrageous. In America, everyone's always hiding their age.

Most artists create foundations where they put their own work. Here I'm not putting my own work. I'm just creating the chambers.

My memoirs are full of humor, I had to change jokes because it was a little too dark.

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

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

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

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

You should see ballerinas' feet. They don't have nails. You see beauty, but it's unbelievable pain - with a 40-year pension! That's it, and then life is really finished.

You know, my mother never thought I would do anything good in my life, and I was standing in this opera with four gold medals! If she were alive, maybe she'd think I was doing well!

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.