Marina Abramović: What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should…

The question

What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore?

Performance artist

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Spend your time on something meaningful. Not on parties, and not on taking it easy. That’s not good enough. […] When you’re young, you think: Let’s party, do drugs, drink, waste it all, right? But as you get older, you look at what you’ve accomplished. And when you get old, you’ve run out of time. You have to ask yourself: Why am I here? Can I contribute anything to humanity, to society, my work?

University Post, University of Copenhagen public talk, University Post (uniavisen.dk), University of Copenhagen source ↗

Others on this question

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Desmond Tutu Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984

Dream. Dream. Dream. Be like God, dream because God believes in you young people. Most of God’s best collaborators and partners have been young people. Joseph, David, Jeremiah, St. Francis. They are young, young, young. And in many ways Jesus was young. Many of those who have been God’s best works — fellow workers have been young. And don’t allow oldies to fill you with their cynicism and disillusionment. Dream. Dream that this world can become better as you do dream, in fact. I mean, when these young people go off and work as Peace Corps and other volunteering groups in poverty stricken places where they don’t get any better headlines for dreaming the good things. Dream. Dream. Dream. Dream that this can be a world without poverty. Dream that this can be a world without war. Dream that this is a world that will recognize that every human being matters.

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗

Keith Black Neurosurgeon; chair of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

If you want to do something, one of the smartest things that you can do is go find someone that’s done it and to try to get them to show you how they did it, to show you where the potholes are. What are the right steps to get there? ... And not just in terms of where to go to school, but what are the things that are really tough that you have to overcome, and how did you overcome it.

Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 4 May 2001 source ↗

Richard Feynman Theoretical physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965

So I wish to you—I have no more time, so I have just one wish for you—the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom. May I also give you one last bit of advice: Never say that you'll give a talk unless you know clearly what you're going to talk about and more or less what you're going to say.

Recorded Caltech commencement address, Pasadena, California, Caltech Engineering and Science (Caltech Library archive), 1 June 1974 source ↗

Nora Ephron Journalist, essayist, screenwriter and film director

My advice to everyone is: “Become a journalist.” ... if you have a chance to be a newspaper reporter for three or four years — before you do whatever you want to do — do it, because you will know so much.

Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 21 June 2007 source ↗