Controversial artist Tracey Emin said she does not think she would have had the same success if she had had a family.
Emin, who turned 50 last week, said she no longer regrets not having children or getting married.
She told Hello! Magazine: "I doubt I would have done what I have done if I had had children. It has been bad enough with my cat Docket - demanding, demanding..."
Tracey Emin with her cat Docket
She added: "When you have children you immediately have a sense of purpose. I don't have the benchmarks that a mother has - watching her children grow, the grandchildren, knowing that it has all been worth it - which is why work and art is so important to me. Art is what keeps me going. Art is my love, my husband, my children - everything."
The former leading light of the group dubbed the Young British Artists (YBA) said she was now planning on a quiet life.
She said: "I am actually quite old fashioned.
"I love fun and I am notorious for throwing a good party, but I think at my age there should be some decorum.
"I don't think I will be celebrating many more. I want to ease down from that sort of thing and concentrate on my work. If that is going well, everything else falls into place. I am not married, I don't have children, I am totally financially independent and all I want to do is enjoy my work which gives me the ultimate pleasure in life."
Emin, who first made an impression on the public in 1997 with a drunken appearance on a television discussion show, said she was "taking much better care" of herself now, saying: "I am so much more contented in my life now."
The artist really caught public attention when she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and exhibited one of her most famous works, My Bed, at the Tate Gallery.
The unmade bed, littered with condoms, cigarettte packets and underwear, divided the critics but began the process that saw her become one of the country's most famous artists.
Read the full story in this week's Hello! Magazine, out now.
