Quotes from Marina Abramovic

One of my aims was to be paid as well as a plumber. Plumber was better-paid than any performance artist who was always doing this for free. It is so important to make a good living from art. You know, John Cage, until he was 60, he couldn't pay electricity.

With classical ballet you are literally injuring yourself.

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

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.

I change so many houses and places where I live; I change them like I change socks. I don't have this absolute, kind of, how you say, attachment. My brother, if he just has to go to holiday to sleep in different bed, for him it is a disaster. I can sleep under this table or in a five-star hotel; I don't care.

There's plenty of talented women. Why do men take over the important positions? It's simple. Love, family, children - a woman doesn't want to sacrifice all of that.

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 prepare a lot. For 'The Artist Is Present,' it took me a year to teach my body not to produce acids.

I had difficult mother, difficult childhood like she had. She is Sagittarius like I am. I almost died from broken heart because of love. And she really did.

I don't have tattoos, I have scars!

Art comes from life, not from the studio

Most people are more comfortable with what is familiar. I've spent my life doing the opposite.

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

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.

Cancer is an emotional disease.

I can explain my work to the cleaner or the president; it's all the same to me. I am very communist in this way.

An artist should not fall in love with another artist.

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.

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

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

Most of the time, the artists are not supposed to wear the fashion. It is always seen as a vanity. But I think I don't need to prove anything in my life. I can honestly say I love fashion and I can be many things at the same time.

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

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.

I'm not feminist, by the way. I am just an artist.