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Walk Through Walls: A Memoir

Marina Abramović

Top 10 Best Quotes

“Some couples buy pots and pans when they move in together. Ulay and I began planning how to make art together.”

“I came to believe in the idea of parallel realities. I think that the reality we see now is a certain frequency, and that we're all on the same frequency, so we're visible to each other, but that it's possible to change frequencies. To enter a different reality. And I think that there are hundreds of these realities.”

“Then I woke up and the reality of the dream was stronger than the reality of the day.”

“Much later on, I read a statement of Bruce Nauman's: “Art is a matter of life and death.” It sounds melodramatic, but it's so true. This was exactly how it was for me”

“<...> you can tell the most terrible truths if you first open the human heart with humor.”

“We had no money, but I felt we were rich: the pleasure of having some pecorino cheese, a few garden-grown tomatoes, and a liter of olive oil; of making love in the car, with Alba just sleeping quietly in the corner, was beyond wealth. There is no price for that. It was so impossibly beautiful - all three of us breathing the same rhythm, the days going by...”

“I realized that this is the theme I return to constantly - I'm always trying to prove to everyone that I can go it alone, that I can survive, that I don't need anybody.”

“Travelling makes a person young because he doesn't get time to get old.”

“Failures are very important - they mean a great deal to me. After a big failure, I go into a deep depression and a very dark part of my body, but soon afterward I come back to life again, alive to something else. I always question artists who are successful in whatever they do - I think what that means is that they're repeating themselves and not taking enough risks. If you experiment, you have to fail. By definition, experimenting means going to territory where you've never been, where failure is very possible. How can you know you're going to succeed? Having the courage to face the unknown is so important. I love to live in the spaces in between, the places where you leave the comforts of your home and your habits behind and make yourself completely open to chance.”

“Make it simple. Increase contact. Remove barriers.”

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Book Keywords:

failure, learning, growth

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