Creativity Quote by Tracey Emin

Emin’s line slices through the performance of remorse with the same blunt honesty that runs through her work. An apology, she suggests, is less a moral act than a consumable object: printed, handled, grease-stained, and tossed. By calling it “tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper,” she collapses sincerity into ephemera, turning the grand theatre of contrition into yesterday’s headlines repurposed as packaging. The insult isn’t just toward the person who might apologize; it’s toward the whole cultural system that treats wrongdoing as content with a short shelf life.

The intent is protective and prosecutorial at once. She refuses the ritual that invites closure on the offender’s terms. An apology can function as a pressure valve: it releases tension, resets the social contract, and lets everyone move on without anyone having to sit with the damage. Emin’s stance denies that convenience. She’s not asking to be soothed; she’s insisting on consequences, or at least on memory.

The subtext lands in a very British register: chip-shop imagery, tabloid churn, the everyday cynicism of knowing how quickly public outrage cycles. Emin came up in the YBA era, when art, scandal, confession, and media attention were constantly feeding each other. In that ecosystem, “sorry” often reads as PR, not ethics. Her line isn’t anti-forgiveness; it’s anti-disposable redemption. It argues that if the apology is mainly for optics, it’s already destined for the bin.