Quotes from Marina Abramovic

If I'm not nervous, I'm nervous. You never know how people are going to receive the work.

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

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

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.

A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room.

I don't think anyone does anything from happiness. 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.

Yes, 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.

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

All the aggressive actions I do to myself I would never dream of doing in my own life - I am not this kind of person. I cry if I cut myself peeling potatoes. I am taking the plane, there is turbulence, I am shaking. In performance, I become, somehow, like not a mortal.

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.

I give people a space to simply sit in silence and communicate with me deeply but non-verbally.

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