You've got to be oblivious to other people, the push and pull of other people's opinions, the way other people measure success. It's then that you realize you are 100 percent who you are and you have to use that who-you-are 100 percent in order to create great things.

For me, art is always a kind of theater.

But I'm more interested in why people are frightened by Jaws and why Jaws was such a hit than saying Spielberg's my main influence.

Making art, good art, is always a struggle. It can make you happy when you pull it off. There's no better feeling. It's beauteous. But it's always about hard work and inspiration and sweat and good ideas.

Whenever I've been well-known or hitting the press, I've always had to get my credit card out to prove I'm Damien Hirst.

So smoking is the perfect way to commit suicide without actually dying. I smoke because it's bad, it's really simple.

Art is the closest you can get to immortality, though it's a poor substitute - you're working for people not yet born - and people want it because it is brilliant. It ends up in museums anyway; the rich have to give it back to the people, it's their only option. There are no pockets in a shroud.