To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings just by changing your breathing.

I am only interested in the ideas that become obsessive and make me feel uneasy. The ideas that I'm afraid of.

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

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

After my performance 'The Artist is Present (2010)' at MoMA in New York, many scientists became interested in why so many people who sat across from me began to cry. I was incredibly moved by this experience also, and was very curious to know what happens in our brains when we spend time not talking, just looking at one another.

The function of the artist in a disturbed society is to give awareness of the universe, to ask the right questions, and to elevate the mind.

Happiness is such a good state, it doesn't need to be creative. You're not creative from happiness, you're just happy. You're creative when you're miserable and depressed. You find the key to transform things. Happiness does not need to transform.

Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being.

It's so easy to do things you like. But then, the thing is, when you're afraid of something, face it; go for it. You become a better human being.

I was friends with Susan Sontag the last four years of her life. She had this amazing charisma and so much energy, but she had a sad little funeral in Montparnasse in Paris. It was rainy. It was all wrong. And I was thinking, 'God, she loved life so much.'

An artist should not fall in love with another artist.

I don't have tattoos, I have scars!

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

We always project into the future or reflect in the past, but we are so little in the present.

I have this exercise that I propose to everybody: Hug a tree and complain for a minimum 15 minutes. Be yourself, and do something that you really feel deeply.

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.

To be a performance artist, you have to hate theatre. Theatre is fake... The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real.

When you have heartbreak, what's important is that you don't go halfway. Go all the way down. Don't take pills that keep you in limbo. Cry out all the feelings. Then your own energy for life will put you up again. You become stronger.

You know how you feel somebody looking at you, and you turn, and somebody actually is? It's the same at an art gallery. You're looking at one portrait, turn around, and there is a work of art directly behind you. Because it's all energy. Every single thing has energy.

In theater, blood is ketchup; in performance, everything's real.

Unconditional love with someone you've never met is a straightforward feeling that is so overwhelming and fulfilling.

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

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.

I come from a big family of hairdressers; they didn't read newspapers. I would say, 'I'm off to Afghanistan...' and they would say, 'Have fun!'