I think if people raise their consciousness and find a purpose, everybody will be helped.

When I did "Seven Easy Pieces," I actually re-performed the performances of other artists. It was such difficult work because I had to really go through the documentation, look through the sources, to ask the witnesses who saw it.

I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. She used to wake me up in the middle of the night if I wasn't sleeping straight and was messing up the sheets. Now when I stay in hotels I sleep so straight they don't even think I've used the bed.

If you have to do durational work, you have to train! No bullshit. You can't do it for three months. You can do it for five hours, 10 hours, and then you have three months rest. If this is your job, you have to be flexible.

You see, what is my purpose of performance artist is to stage certain difficulties and stage the fear the primordial fear of pain, of dying, all of which we have in our lives, and then stage them in front of audience and go through them and tell the audience, I'm your mirror; if I can do this in my life, you can do it in yours.

A great artist has to be ready to fail.

The public is in need of experiences that are not just voyeuristic. Our society is in a mess of losing its spiritual centre.