Marina Abramovic Quotes

Part of being an artist is being willing to be shocked, being willing to be surprised, being willing to be hurt.

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.

I love it when a director says, 'I don't know.'

I live in the studio and I'm inspired.

I am always living in the now, so I like what fate brings to you. That's always fun for me. To have a process and someone be like, 'How about this?' And you just grab onto that and see where it takes you.

I'm not going to be like, "I gotta get this idea out of my head." It's like, "OK, here's a clean slate, and I've got all these paints, and all these brushes, and this is what I'm going to do with it." It reveals itself, and you take a step back and say, "What's happening here? Where are we going? What does this mean? Do I need to break it open? Does it need to just be what it is? Should it end now?"

For as long as I've been making movies, I really don't know a lot of the technical side. I mean, I've actively and consciously tried to avoid learning that stuff. I just want to be open and receptive to what's happening in the moment, and I don't want to force anything.

At 10 o'clock in the morning I'd go right in the studio. It feels good to be there in the morning before the day starts to mess with you - I don't mean in a negative way, but before I'd speak to a lot of people or get into anything, I'd go in there and just see what I felt. A lot happens in the morning for me in the studio.

I'm inspired by anything. Not even just art, just anything that's real and vulnerable.

I've never really had a certain style of music in mind that I make, or am really adamant on how something should sound, but I like the process of not knowing, of just seeing what happens and what comes out.

I try not to have too specific notions because it messes up the process later on. I leave it very open to interpretation until I start casting. Everything changes a lot when you start casting. I mean everything.

Creative scientists and saints expect revelation and do not fear it. Neither do children. But as we grow up and we are hurt, we learned not to trust.

The most emotional part is when I go into my studio every day and pretty much never have an idea of what's gonna happen.

…words have been all my life, all my life--this need is like the Spider's need who carries before her a huge Burden of Silk which she must spin out--the silk is her life, her home, her safety--her food and drink too--and if it is attacked or pulled down, why, what can she do but make more, spin afresh, design anew….

Uncertainty is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom.

Creativity comes from accepting that you're not safe, from being absolutely aware, and from letting go of control. It's a matter of seeing everything - even when you want to shut your eyes.

When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed

To be a writer, open your heart. Keep it open. You can't be a writer with a closed heart.

I sort of have various sort of theories when people ask me about songwriting because it is a mystery. You don't really know. Sometimes you can do it and sometimes you can't. It's really peculiar.

You need others. Too often people think that being unique means being isolated, and being a great artist means coming up with genius ideas out of nowhere. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

There’s never a wrong idea. You just keep throwing stuff out and inevitably there are elements of different things that inspire a character or environment.

I find you have to come as litmus paper and be available to whatever way you can be.

Halfway down the stairs, is a stair, where I sit. There isn't any, other stair, quite like, it. I'm not at the bottom, I'm not at the top; So this is the stair, where, I always, stop. Halfway up the stairs, isn't up, and isn't down. It isn't in the nursery, it isn't in the town. And all sorts of funny thoughts, run round my head: It isn't really anywhere! It's somewhere else instead!

You just do the best you can. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to get worse the more you do it. It can get better, I think... aspects of it, anyway. I mean, I don't write as much as I used to. But I don't do a lot of things as much as I used to. So that's the natural order of things, too. You're more or less living in the present. You're just trying to get that next song, whatever it is. And not think too much about what happened on the last record, or the record you made 20 years ago, because those are over with. Those are done.

You wouldn't want any creative process to lose its sense of fun and adventure, but that doesn't mean you can't take it seriously as well.