Tracey Emin Quotes

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

All the people in the late '80s and early '90s were really hell-bent on doing something for themselves, and they wouldn't take no for an answer. There was a lot of determination, and I was definitely part of that way of thinking.

When I was 14-15
There was nothing to my life
but dancing and sex
I'd go to night clubs and dance
Then I'd meet someone and have sex
it was Fine and easy
nothing to do
BUT Think with my body
like a bird
I Thought I was Free
TrAcey Emin

I am fiercely independent and I probably wouldn't be if it wasn't for the way in which I was brought up.

The wheel that squeaks gets the oil.

In New York, working at the foundry, I was making these little figures. I desperately would like to make big figures, but I just can't do it; my hands don't do it. We were talking about making bronze plinths, and then we made one, a square one. I wrote on it, then I put a little figure on top, and it just looked really good. It worked.

It wasn't so much destroying my dancing, it was destroying me.

I remember, when I was about ten years old, working out that I would be thirty-six in the year 2000. It seemed so far away, so old, so unreal. And here I am, a fucked, crazy, anorexic-alcoholic-childless beautiful woman. I never dreamed it would be like this.

Strange living. I have always had a strange life. Never knowing what was true, living in a world of dreams. Christ, I told myself, I've got to get up. But with the weight of my thoughts, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Why did I keep taking on all of this - this shit and keep feeling it even after it had passed through a hundred million times?

I found that life has to be edited to continue.

I'm totally monogamous when I'm in a relationship, and when I'm not in a relationship, I don't sleep around. So when I'm not with someone, I'm really on my own.

People don't remember. Revenge is sweet.

Dreams don't have time. Neither does sleep, nor death. That's why it is sometimes good to wear a watch.

If I didn't want to work for a couple of years, I wouldn't have to-it's a great feeling, to know I'm doing it because I want to do it.

They look at someone like me, and I just really get up their nose. I really wind them up.

When I think about sex it makes me realise how alone I feel.

I've been making bronze sculptures for a long time. My sculptures are wholly unsuccessful and uncommercial. No one is even the remotest bit interested in them. So it's almost like my hobby.

There's so much stuff said about me that's not true, so now if something is hurtful and wrong, I send an e-mail or letter immediately, saying, This is not true.

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

When you're 20 or 30, looking ahead, you see these benchmarks for relationships, career, ambition, sexuality, and they went off into infinity. When you get to 50, you look at what's ahead of you, and there's an end. It goes into a nothingness, a void.

I know I'm supposed to say ageing doesn't bother me, then suddenly you're like, 'Yeah, I care about it, I really worry about it. I'm getting old. I'm old!'

It pleases me that people can be interactive.

DON'T BE AFRAID TO TAKE THE PAST HEAD ON.

When you don't have children you have to define and make your own purpose, and make your own reason for being here.

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.

I had become conscious of my physicality, aware of my presence and open to the ugly truths of the world. At the age of thirteen, I realised that there was a danger in innocence and beauty, and I could not live with both.

I really love animals. My cat is my little soul mate. He's not just a cat, he's my friend.

The words went round and round and round in my mind and my body, until I knew they were no longer my words but something that had been carved into my heart.
And now my soul was crying.

My New Year's Eve is always 2 July, the night before my birthday. That's the night I make my resolutions. And this year scares the life out of me, because no matter how successful, how good things appear, there is always a deep core of failure within me, although I am trying to deal with it. My biggest fear, this coming year, is that I will be waking up alone.
It makes me wonder how many bodies will be fished out of the Thames, how many decaying corpses will be found in one-room flats.
I'm just being realistic.

Sometimes i feel lonely, but it's ok

For me, being an artist with a high profile is a good thing for art.

They grew really quickly. One minute I didn't have any tits and the next I had the biggest tits in the world

I never grew up.

The people in Miami are so different from anywhere else I've been in America. They're so down to earth, really friendly, and quite self-effacing, with a good sense of humor. I'm not saying other parts of America don't have a sense of humor, but Miami maybe has to have a really good sense of humor for lots of different reasons, and it works. It works for me.

I didn't have an exhibition anywhere until I was 30. My first exhibition was at 30, and then for my first show in America, I'm 50. It's kind of all right: I'm just a slow burner.

I woke up feeling alone, so lonely. The night before, I had cried myself to sleep. I lay there on the floor, listening to the tube trains passing beneath me. I thought, All those hundreds and thousands and millions of people. London, London - I hate you. I picked myself up and got ready.

I've worked really hard. I've made three pieces of seminal art in my life. If I died tomorrow, I'd be remembered for making them. There are a lot of artists who, no matter how hard they work in their lives, will never make anything seminal.

If I were really, truly in love with someone who was truly in love with me, then I would get married, but that would be the only reason I'd get married.

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.

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.

There is nothing difficult about my work, and people get to hear it from me.

It's my memory, and what happened between that moment 10 or 15 years ago and now, there's a lot of gray area.

I don't believe in love, but I believe in you.

Oh Christ, I just wanted you to fuck me. And then I became greedy, I wanted you to love me.

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

I've got over so much. Mum wouldn't want anything to come into my life that would make me fragile again.

I thought it would be my one and only exhibition, so I decided to call it My Major Retrospective.

Women, at 50, are on a plateau with their careers, but later they ascend.

One thing about an artist, it doesn't matter how much your work sells for in your life, it's going to sell for ten times more than that after you're dead, and that's what you have to protect.