Quotes About Creativity

What is imagination? I don't believe in fiction. In my mind everything comes from a part of who a writer is.

Sometimes I wish that I could sing or dance or paint or compose symphonies or build cathedrals to express somehow what all of this means to me. I wish I were a priest or a robin or a child or a sunset.

Writing is hard enough. Writing can be doubly hard when one tries to write to some unseen, unknown crowd of folks in Peoria or any other spot on the planet.

A direct relationship exists between the caliber of the writing you read and the caliber of the writing you make.

Some days I am on the road. Some days I am reading, and some days I am copying quotes. Some days I am writing letters, and some days I am writing chapters. There are no days when I am not working on the craft. There are no days when I am not a writer

I know I am finished with a book when I never want to see it again. And if you have worked at it long enough to hate the sight of it, I promise you will come to love it again some sweet day. That is when you will know you did a writer's work.

Sometimes, when I am reading, the way a person has phrased his truth is as important to me as the truth itself. The wording is like a powerful painting that I would like to put on the wall. I want to share the statement with other people, not just for its truth, but also because the way it is worded somehow has a special meaning for me.

Any photographer can tell you that lighting makes the difference in a photo. It takes an artist to make the light work with a photo.

Love is the greatest touch-up artist of all.

It pleases me to take amateur photographs of my garden, and it pleases my garden to make my photographs look professional.

Whoever dreamed up Scrabble had an exaggerated idea of how many seven-letter words have five i's.

As a job seeker, remember this: You only lack experience if they want it done the same old way.

The mind, as you age, Is an artist, it seems. Monet paints your mem'ries, Picasso your dreams.

If it doesn't work horizontally as prose... it probably won't work any better vertically pretending to be poetry.

The painter puts brush to canvas, and the poet puts pen to paper. The poet has the easier task, for his pen does not alter his rhyme.

Sometimes, to pursue a new idea, the artist must forfeit his deposit on an old idea.

Dare to turn life on its end, and you may find that topsy-turvy is a truer perspective than turvy-topsy.

In the realist you have the sorry sight of the five senses deprived of their imagination.

What if man were required to educate his children without the help of talking animals.

There is in every artist's studio a scrap heap of discarded works in which the artist's discipline prevailed against his imagination.

The artist uses the talent he has, wishing he had more talent. The talent uses the artist it has, wishing it had more artist.

Genius is a plodding intellect, incapable of dreaming up the obstacles that stop the rest of us.

O, how much simpler things would be If eyes could paint or brush could see.

The first assumption of an art critic is that the artist meant to paint something else.