Cornelia Parker

I was involved in a serious accident driving in torrential rain at midnight in Cardiff. I was only doing five miles an hour, but because I couldn't see very well, I crossed a junction and collided with another car that was driving very fast. I ended up in hospital for six weeks with a shattered pelvis. ”

Maybe it's my Catholic upbringing - I grew up thinking that Armageddon was just around the corner - now I know it is, with global warming and all. I can keep it at bay by doing the work. It's a sort of reverse sympathetic magic. I'm always doing it so it doesn't happen to me. ”

At times, I've been incapacitated by anxiety and unhappiness. You really know what joy is if you have experienced the opposite. ”

I don't drive for pleasure. It's purely to get from A to B. ”

Violence is part of everybody's life, whether you like or express it or not. My work utilises all the energies that I have, and part of it is violent, and I'd rather it be out than in. ”

I think your subconscious knows far more than your conscious, so I trust it. ”

I can consciously say I like squashing things because I saw 'Tom and Jerry' films or Charlie Chaplin in 'Modern Times.' That's true. ”

I definitely didn't want children, because my childhood was not a very happy time. ”

If I was prime minister, I would declare a state of emergency on climate change. ”

I do think there is a link between the accidental art the sciences produce and the deliberate art the artist creates, but I can't help feeling that the innocence of the accidental art of science has a power and curious beauty that artists are hard-pressed to match. ”