Tracey Emin Quotes

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.

Sometimes I have the most amazing moments of clarity. Razor sharp, crystal clear. It's at these times I can see how fucking stupid I am.

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.

I found that life has to be edited to continue.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

Brian Wilson went to bed for three years. Jean-Michel Basquiat would spend all day in bed. Monica Ali, Charles Bukowski, Marcel Proust, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tracey Emin, Emily Dickinson, Edith Sitwell, Frida Kahlo, William Wordsworth, René Descartes, Mark Twain, Henri Matisse, Kathy Acker, Derek Jarman and Patti Smith all worked or work from bed and they’re productive people. (Am I protesting too much?) Humans take to their beds for all sorts of reasons: because they’re overwhelmed by life, need to rest, think, recover from illness and trauma, because they’re cold, lonely, scared, depressed – sometimes I lie in bed for weeks with a puddle of depression in my sternum – to work, even to protest (Emily Dickinson, John and Yoko). Polar bears spend six months of the year sleeping, dormice too. Half their lives are spent asleep, no one calls them lazy. There’s a region in the South of France, near the Alps, where whole villages used to sleep through the seven months of winter – I might be descended from them. And in 1900, it was recorded that peasants from Pskov in northwest Russia would fall into a deep winter sleep called lotska for half the year: ‘for six whole months out of the twelve to be in the state of Nirvana longed for by Eastern sages, free from the stress of life, from the need to labour, from the multitudinous burdens, anxieties, and vexations of existence’.‡ Even when I’m well I like to lie in bed and think. It’s as if

Strolling on the plateau of life, desperate for the mountain, I never thought that I would get this far. It's only art that has carried me through, given me faith in my own existence. But now I am approaching a point in my life where I desire more...

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?

A made desire to be more human, to be more normal, that's what pushes me, these days - but as someone said the other say. 'Trace, you're going to have to face facts. You and normal parted a long, long time ago.

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.

He pulled my skirt up. I began to worry. Everyone knew he had broken in girls before and I didn't want it to happen to me. I said, 'No. Get off, please.' He pulled me down the alley and pushed me to the ground. As I lay on my back worrying about my new blue coat, he pushed his fingers up between my legs — and rammed himself into me. I was crying. His lips were pressed against mine but I was motionless, like a small corpse. He grunted and I knew it was over. He got up, I just lay there on the ground, my tights round my ankles. The clock was striking twelve. As he walked away, he turned and said, 'I've always wanted to do it to you. I like your mouth'. When I got in, my mum said, 'Tracey, what's wrong with you?' I showed her my coat, the dirt and the stains, and told her 'I'm not a virgin any more.' She didn't call the police or make any fuss. She just washed my coat and everything carried on as normal, as though nothing had happened. But for me, my childhood was over, 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. (describing childhood rape)

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

Strange living. I 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 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 me a hundred million times?

He’d kind of vanished off the face of the earth. A difficult thing to do in Margate, a derelict seaside town where there was nothing to do but blend in with the general decay: bum around, fuck, be fucked, fight and wish your life away.

I always loved ‘Gullivers Travel’s. A giant man in a tiny world, a tiny man in a giant world. And there is one line I remember, though perhaps I imagined it: ‘I like a tiny man with a lot of spunk in him.’ Well, I’m a tiny man and so have I. And I can prove it.

I didn’t know what strange games were. To me, it was all part of living. A strange living. I had never known the truth so I had never cared for the truth, rationality or reason. I lived in a world of dreams, good and bad.

Anyways, I suddenly had an urge to put my watch on. Time or no time, I wanted some worldly security. That’s what watches do: they keep us bound to this world. Dreams don’t have time. Neither does sleep, nor death. That’s why it is sometimes good to wear a watch.

Me and my mum send most of our time on the phone discussing EastEnders: Grant and Tiffany; the prospect of Sharon returning to the square, perhaps with Michelle Fowler, both with babies, both fathered by Grant; the happy irony of Michelle and Sharon being truly related. We all slip into these unreal worlds as a release from the daily drudgery.

Margate’s never been easy, always hard. ‘If you want a dirty weekend, go to Margate,’ I always say. You can be as dirty as you like. Van Gogh and Turner, Ronnie Biggs and the Krays all went there. Romans, Vikings, Hell’s Angels, teds, mods, rockers and punks, they all fought there.

M. Masculinity, Manhood. What makes a man a Man? As a woman at the dawn of mid-life, I can confess to having learned, for sure, that I have more testosterone in my right foot then most men have surging around their entire bodies. You don’t have to be born with balls to have balls. There is spunk and there is mental spunk, and it’s the latter that gets me up in the mornings, that makes me change my life, that moves the world around me.

I is for me. I cannot believe how much I have fucked up in love. At least, physically. I don’t believe I have mentally. For some weird reason, all of my tiny horrors have been liveable. I have not died. In fact, life has become better. Through age and experience there has come realisation: life is worth living.

And all the things I think, and all the things I believe, are making me cry.

At the beginning of 1992, I left art. It was a terrible break-up: all part of my emotional suicide, when I attempted to give up everything I loved that did not love me back. It was a destructive time. But also a time of revelation. I was twenty-eight years old. I had spent seven years in and out of art college. I had a first-class degree in fine art and I had spent three years out of art school, struggling to make something beautiful, only to arrive at the tearful conclusion that I would never be a great artist. My life was too important to chop into little pieces in the attempt to make art. That was why I had always failed… Like a wounded bird, I began to rebuild myself, using the experience of failure as my foundation.

Strangely enough, you’ll find the less sex a person has, the less they masturbate. I have a close friend who assures me she has only masturbated five times in her life. Of course, there is the theory that she doesn’t have a vagina. Then again, I know for a fact that most of her daily life, including her work, is wrapped up in fantasy. Leaving her eyes crystal clear.

I tried to tell people about it, but I was drunk: they thought I was talking in riddles or metaphors.

It’s now six a.m. and I’m smoking. Oh yeah, Tracey: it’s all going so fucking well. The lonely princess. Carbon monoxide is feeding my soul.

The Margate of my mind has the most beautiful sunsets that stretch across the entire horizon. Sharp white cliffs divide a charcoal blue sea from the hard reality of the land.

…I wasn’t a kid. I was thirteen: I had been raped, I had lost my front teeth and I had suffered disillusionment with life. But I knew there was something better: there was an outside – an outside of me. And somewhere that wasn’t Margate. Yet I owe so much to that place I grew up, mainly because it is so beautiful. And what is so fantastic and beautiful is the sunset, and that is free.

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. I want to be joined. I want to be open and free to explore every part of them, as though I were exploring myself. I want to go to sleep and wake with my skin taut. I want to feel cum on my face. I want to laugh with my eyes open. I want to sleep with my eyes closed.

When I was 14 – 15 there was nothing to do in my life but dancing and sex. I’d go to nightclubs 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.

A mad desire to be more human, to be more normal, that’s what pushes me, these days – but as someone said the other day. "Trace, you’re going to have to face facts. You and normal, parted a long, long time ago.

The flies were in love with me: they loved me like I was a piece of donkey shit.

When Paul went to prison, I cried at first. Not for Paul but for me. Then I started to behave strangely. Wild. Restless.

I found a way to visit without fear, exorcising all ghosts from the past to fill my mind with something mind-blowing.

But I knew there was something better: there was an outside – an outside of me.

I smell of decay, the acrid smell of a lonely person, a person with no respect or regard for themselves.