Quotes by Marina Abramovic

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

— Marina Abramovic

Success

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.'

— Marina Abramovic

Courage

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

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

— Marina Abramovic

Life

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

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

— Marina Abramovic

Hope

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.'

— Marina Abramovic

Friendship

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Life

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Happiness

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Life

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

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

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Life

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Love

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Success

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

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

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

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

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

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

— Marina Abramovic

Success

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Hope

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

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

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.

— Marina Abramovic

Wisdom

Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being.

— Marina Abramovic

Happiness