1,443 quotes found
“Practice makes perfect, but it doesn’t make new. The gifted learn to play magnificent Mozart melodies and beautiful Beethoven symphonies, but never compose their own original scores.”
“Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another. By covering our bases financially, we escape the pressure to publish half-baked books, sell shoddy art, or la...”
“And be grateful that you’re a Scanner. Not everyone can have this much fun with nothing but what’s between her ears.”
“Let’s end the notion that ideas have no value unless they turn into a business or have some other practical use. Save them all in a beautiful book like Leonardo did. You might want to give them awa...”
“Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another.”
“It might have been done before, but it hasn’t been done by you!”
“Perhaps creativity’s greatest mercy is this: By completely absorbing our attention for a short and magical spell, it can relieve us temporarily from the dreadful burden of being who we are. Best of...”
“There’s plenty of room in this vehicle for all of us, so make yourself at home, but understand this: Creativity and I are the only ones who will be making any decisions along the way. I recognize a...”
“It starts by forgetting about perfect. We don’t have time for perfect. In any event, perfection is unachievable: It’s a myth and a trap and a hamster wheel that will run you to death. The writer Re...”
“Stop treating your creativity like it’s a tired, old, unhappy marriage (a grind, a drag) and start regarding it with the fresh eyes of a passionate lover. Even if you have only fifteen minutes a da...”
“I write because there are things in me that cannot die.”
“Relax your expectations, in fact, purposely lower them so low that you feel excitedly naughty about showing up to perform your work with reckless abandon. If that’s hard, open to doing it that way ...”
“If you are open to change and welcome surprise, you know the secret of creativity and the secret of life.”
“… mess is the material from which life and creativity are built …”
“It isn't enough to pick a path—you must go down it. By doing so, you see things you couldn't possibly see when you started out; you may not like what you see, some of it may be confusing, but at le...”
“It’s frustration which makes creativity possible.”
“There’s no such thing as writer’s block, so long as you’ve had plenty of time to think about what you want to write.”
“They slow your brain down," he said, clutching an orange bottle of pills. "They iron out all the wrinkles...Maybe all the bad stuff happens in the wrinkles, but all the good stuff does, too..."They...”
“You don’t get lucky without preparation, and there’s no sense in being prepared if you’re not open to the possibility of a glorious accident.”
“The greatest moments of creativity come in absolute solitude, when one’s mind is free from distraction and able to probe the depths of the impossible.”
