Quotes from Tracey Emin

It's now six a.m. and I'm smoking. Oh yeah, Tracey: it's all going so fucking well. The lonely princess. Carbon monoxide is feeding my soul.

A mad desire to be more human, to be more normal, that's what pushes me, these days – but as someone said the other day. "Trace, you're going to have to face facts. You and normal, parted a long, long time ago.

Art is like a lover whom you run away from but who comes back and picks you up.

There should be something revelatory about art. It should be totally creative and open doors for new thoughts and experiences.

Most people don't do something seminal. I've done it twice: with my tent and my bed. Picasso did it with Cubism.

When it comes to words I have a uniqueness that I find almost impossible in art – and it's my words that actually make my art quite unique.

Being an artist and having to be responsible for the art that you make is really quite challenging, and as you get older it becomes more and more difficult.

I've been slagged off completely by the art world and I don't know whether fancy being slagged off by the literary world as well. It's just too much.

I'm a terrible cook, but if I could cook, I would see that in art as well, it's how much creative energy you put into something.

I've been slagged off completely by the art world.

I've got to start using my brain more - I've got to be more ethereal and more enlightened.

What is truth? Truth doesn't really exist. Who is going to judge whether my experience of an incident is more valid than yours? No one can be trusted to be the judge of that.