Marina Abramovic

“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. An...”

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

“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.”

“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...”

“Of course I dream to have this perfect man who does not want to change me. And I'm so not marriage material, it's terrible. But my dream is to have those Sunday mornings, where you're eating...”

“My mother and father were partisan national heroes: I learned sacrifice and discipline from them and that a private life is not as important as the message you want to leave.”

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

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

“I grew up with my grandmother because my parents were making careers and didn't have much time for me. She was a highly religious Serbian Orthodox, spending most of her time in church. It's...”

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

“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...”

“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.”

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

“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...”

“I have this exercise that I propose to everybody: Hug a tree and complain for a minimum 15 minutes. Be yourself, and do something that you really feel deeply.”

“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...”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“The only time I really feel tired and old is when I look back; I always like to look just in the front of me. I'll always feel like I didn't finish enough, such a short time is left, and the...”