Quotes by Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin

All the mistakes I’ve ever made in my life have been when I’ve been drunk. I haven’t made hardly any mistakes sober, ever, ever.

Drunk

Life

Mistake

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.

Determination

People

Thinking

Because of the amount of press attention, people went to see this dirty bed, as if it was a freak show. But when they got there, they saw something else – the bed, stuff on the walls, whatever. For the Tate, it’s the highest attendance they ever received for the Turner Prize show. There was a massive queue, and when you got into my bit, you couldn’t move.

Dirty

Moving

Wall

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.

Aging

Art

Challenges

Criticism on my works is like this: you’ve worked hard all of your life, you went to Oxford, and you’ve done this and that, and you’re an art critic. Your job is to unravel the “secret” or whatever, and you come across an entity like me. It’s going to piss you off. Because there’s no great secret, what you see is what you get, and anyone can understand what I’m doing. So, it’s almost like I make this critic-person redundant, just by my attitude, and they resent me for that.

Art

Attitude

Secret

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

Art

Good Things

Profile

Have you ever longed for someone so much, so deeply that you thought you would die? That your heart would just stop beating? I am longing now, but for whom I don’t know. My whole body craves to be held. I am desperate to love and be loved. I want my mind to float into another’s. I want to be set free from despair by the love I feel for another. I want to be physically part of someone else. I want to be joined. I want to be open and free to explore every part of them, as though I were exploring myself.

Despair

Heart

Mind

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

Fierce

Independent

Way

I don’t ask for an apology because it’s only tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper.

Apology

Fish Tanks

Sorry

I feel physically ill if I don’t make work, I don’t create. I don’t feel very good. I don’t feel right, I feel wrong.

Feels Right

Ill

Very Good

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Adventure

Age

Aging

Animal

Apology

Art

Art Is

Art World

Attitude

Bed

Believe

Book

Cat

Challenges

Children

Couple

Creative

Dad

Desire

Despair

Determination

Difficult

Dirty

Doors

Driven

Drunk

Energy

Europe

Exhibitions

Feels Right

Fierce

Fish Tanks

Fun

Gay

Gay Pride

Good Things

Hangover

Hate

Heart

House

Hurtful

Ideas

Ill

Impossible

Independent

Influence

League

Letters

Life

Like Love

The Future Blueprint

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The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

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The Dating Diary

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Quotes by Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin

All the mistakes I’ve ever made in my life have been when I’ve been drunk. I haven’t made hardly any mistakes sober, ever, ever.

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.

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.

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

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

I don’t ask for an apology because it’s only tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper.

I feel physically ill if I don’t make work, I don’t create. I don’t feel very good. I don’t feel right, I feel wrong.

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Topics by Tracey Emin

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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