Quotes About Creativity

I held on to those other sources of income for so long because I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life.

Every time you express a complaint about how difficult and tiresome it is to be creative, inspiration takes another step away from you

There's no dishonor in having a job. What is dishonorable is scaring away your creativity by demanding that it pay for your entire existence.

What does any of that have to do with the quiet glory of merely making things, and then sharing those things with an open heart and no expectations?

When artists are burdened with the label of "genius," I think they lose the ability to take themselves lightly, or to create freely.

You can believe that you are neither a slave to inspiration nor its master, but something far more interesting—its partner—and that the two of you are working together toward something intriguing and worthwhile.

alongside me. The fact that I am here at all is evidence that I have the right to be here. I have a right to my own voice and a right to my own vision. I have a right to collaborate with creativity, because I myself am a product and a consequence of Creation. I'm on a mission of artistic liberation, so let the girl go." See? Now you're the one doing the talking.

If you show up for your work day after day after day, you just might get lucky enough some random morning to burst right into bloom.

I think that the difference between a tormented creative life and a tranquil creative life is nothing more than the difference between the word awful and the word interesting.

Pure creativity is something better than a necessity; it's a gift. It's the frosting. Our creativity is a wild and unexpected bonus from the universe. It's as if all our gods and angels gathered together and said, "It's tough down there as a human being, we know. Here—have some delights.

He realized that "failure has a function. It asks you whether you really want to go on making things.

As a creator, you can design any sort of jewelry that you like for the inside of other people's minds (or simply for the inside of your own mind). You can make work that's provocative, aggressive, sacred, edgy, traditional, earnest, devastating, entertaining, brutal, fanciful . . . but when all is said and done, it's still just intracranial jewelry-making. It's still just decoration. And that's glorious.

So you are industrious, but not original?

I had creativity within me that was original; I had a personality within me that was original; I had dreams and perspectives and aspirations within me that were original.

But I remember thinking that learning how to endure your disappointment and frustration is part of the job of a creative person. If you want to be an artist of any sort, it seemed to me, then handling your frustration is a fundamental aspect of the work—perhaps the single most fundamental aspect of the work.

You may want your work to be perfect, in other words; I just want mine to be finished.

Perfectionism stops people from completing their work, yes—but even worse, it often stops people from beginning their work. Perfectionists

Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome. Your fear—programmed by evolution to be hypervigilant and insanely overprotective—will always assume that any uncertain outcome is destined to end in a bloody, horrible death. Basically, your fear is like a mall cop who thinks he's a Navy SEAL:

Creative living is a path for the brave. a

Our planet is inhabited not only by animals, and planets, and bacteria, but also ideas. Ideas are a disembodied energetic life-form. They are completely separated from us but capable of interacting with us.

Everybody imitates before they can innovate.

I always try to remind myself that I am having an affair with my creativity, and I make an effort to present myself to inspiration like somebody you might actually want to have an affair with—not

Creativity is a path for the brave, yes, but it is not a path for the fearless, and it's important to recognize the distinction.

But if you don't have the courage, let's try to get you some. Because creative living is a path for the brave. We all know this. And we all know that when courage dies, creativity dies with it. We all know that fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun. This is common knowledge; sometimes we just don't know what to do about it.