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.

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.

Artists should never think of themselves as an idol. Fame is a side effect of one’s work.

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...

Time is an illusion. Time only exists when we think about the past and the future. Time doesn’t exist in the present here and now.

People in New York never have time for anything.

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...

I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She used to wake me up in the middle of the night if I wasn’t sleeping straight and was messing up the sheets. Now when I...

Performance is there, and if you are not there in that moment it happened, it just stays in the memory. It’s so immaterial and something this immaterial is very difficult to collect. Its difficult to...

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

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 didn’t get paid for performances most of my life. If I did, I would be billionaire now, and I’m not.

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...

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

So many artists say they’re not aware of audience. For me is unbelievable.

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

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.

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.

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...

An artist should not fall in love with another artist.

A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room.

From the very early stage when I started doing performance art in the ’70s, the general attitude – not just me, but also my colleagues – was that there should not be any documentation, that...

You know, James Franco is one of the most interesting figures because he has no rules. He breaks all the borders.

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

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

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...

I am very clear that I am not a feminist. It puts you into a category and I don’t like that.

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

For me, performance is a holy ground. When I perform, I really step into a different state of consciousness.

Even now, I have traces of the good little girl. When I am not performing, for instance, I am really very quiet and ordinary.

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

Artists can do whatever they want!

The only theatre I do is my own. Somehow, my life is the only life that I can play.

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...

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...

In real life, you just work for the ordinary self, but in the front of audience you become the superself. That’s a completely different thing.

My mother and father had a terrible marriage. They celebrated their wedding anniversary one year with their friends. Why did they celebrate? Maybe because they had lasted so many years without killing each other.

From the moment you are born, you could die. I think as an artist it is important to meditate on that.

Once you live in New York, you can’t live anywhere else. Living in Paris is like going in slow motion. It’s so bourgeois. I get so bored.

People ask why there are so few female artists who succeed. It’s because women are not ready to sacrifice as much as men. Women want a man, they want a family, they want to have...

Every party is the same, too many people, too little food, and you have to wait around. I’m extremely bored with parties.

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

You can’t choreograph death, but you can choreograph your funeral.

I really don’t like art where you need to know so much theory to understand. If the theory is removed, it doesn’t do anything. That means that this work is an illustration of theory, and...

An artist has to look at the future, to see what we can do better.