Quotes About Creativity

The growth of the imagination demands windows-windows through which we can look out at the world and windows through which we can look into ourselves. The old stories were windows in just this way.

Leslie was more than his friend. She was his other, more exciting self - his way to Terabithia and all the worlds beyond.

One of the novels that was hardest for me to write had to deal with the horrible slaughter of war. I almost didn't finish Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom for just that reason.

I wonder if children don't begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them.

When I have all of Manhattan to choose from I tend to dither, to hold out for perfection—but as any poet can testify, limits encourage both inspiration and decisiveness.

Can I let you in on a remarkable secret? I find that the more ideas I let myself have, the more ideas I have.

but as any poet can testify, limits encourage both inspiration and decisiveness.

For me, a peaceful atmosphere devoid of noise and distractions is absolutely the worst place for poetry, likely to wind me up in a doomed attempt to stare down a blank page. My funny old brain, like those of many poets, has always done its best work sideways, seeking out tricky enjambments and surprising slant rhymes to craft lines capable of pulling their own weight.

The last poem I wrote before they sent me in was called "Blackout;" it went like this: When life seems gray And short of fizz It seems that way Because it is.

Most people assume that a muse is a creature of perfect beauty, poise and grace. Like the creatures from Greek mythology. They're wrong. In fact, there should be a marked absence of perfection in a muse--a gaping hole between what she is and what she might be. The ideal muse is a woman whose rough edges and contradictions drive you to fill in the blanks of her character. She is the irritant to your creativity. A remarkable possibility, waiting to be formed.

FACTS ABOUT UNICORNS

Gwynneth had gone to his forge and set

Dream on, you addle-brained idiot bird.

Women need to become literary 'criminals,' break the literary laws and reinvent their own, because the established laws prevent women from presenting the reality of their lives.

What I like most about the stories I write is exploring other lives and professions. It's a way of having all the jobs I can't have now. I can also give myself skills I don't have.

Everything that flickered could be made permanent. That was what drew him to photography, what made every painstaking step worth it: the permanence of the image. That was what fascinated him, the working against time...

It's hard to explain how this works, and I admit that it's fairly implausible or untenable as a way of life, but that seems to be how I go about my days: peaceably in person, fiercely on paper.

Simone de Beauvoir] provoked and disturbed feminists with her famous comment about her relationship with Sartre: 'There has been one undoubted success in my life: my relationship with Sartre.' I can almost understand. She adapts her whole being to the situation. She will not be hurt because she will change herself like a sculptor working in clay. She labors for it, sacrifices for it. It is an achievement, a consummately creative act: she invents herself in it.

I still struggle with the belief that I should be producing something more tangible or useful in the world. 'You should do work that makes a real difference,' scolds the voice in my head.... I worried I was being self- indulgent, spending hour after hour engaged in the slow, halting process of moving from experience to thought to word. What, really, was the point? Why would anyone else care? Why should I? I am coming to believe that there is room in the world for all our stories.

A good life is always partly a matter of luck, but it is also a choice we make for ourselves- a choice of deliberation, attention, creativity, limits. A choice predicated on this belief: I am worthy.

The awful, ironic, glorious fix for the writing doldrums is to write the next page.

Even when I'm writing about shape shifters and magical lands, I'm looking into my own heart.

A novel in progress doesn't have a clear, forward process. It's messy, like a beloved, balky child.

The writer's special talent is to empathize with people and imagine their lives. We know them as we write them.