Quotes About Creativity

having acquired a skill at turning grief into ideas

The field seems to require a painfully uncommon synthesis of imagination and realism.

The ultimate goal of the art lover should be to build a world where works of art have become a little less necessary.

Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm, nor does it arise from sentiments of which nonartists are devoid; it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.

A book is the product of another self to the one we display in our habits, in society, in our vices.

And insofar as we travel in search of beauty, works of art may in small ways start to influence where we would like to travel to.

We need to tell ourselves a little more of the truth because we pay too high a price for our concealments. We cut ourselves off from possibilities of growth. We shut out large portions of our minds and end up uncreative, tetchy, and defensive, while others around us have to suffer our irritability, gloom, manufactured cheerfulness, or defensive rationalizations.

the great fortunes of our day have rarely been accumulated through the sale of the most meaningful items and services, such as poetry or relationship counselling.

Des mots tordus, des mots décousus, des mots sans queue ni tête, j'écrirais comme les mots me viendraient, je commencerais maladroitement et je finirais maladroitement comme j'avais commencé, je m'en foutrais de la raison pure, de la méthode, de la phonétique, de la prose (...), ça serait alors l'écriture ou la vie. [Verre Cassé, p. 198]

As a writer one is allowed to have conversations with oneself. What is considered sane in writers is made for the rest of the human race.

But what is it all about, what am I trying to do, is there a message? Nobody knows, and I certainly don't. If one could answer these questions in any other way than by writing what one has written, then there would be no point in writing at all.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad', and if you're planning on writing that's probably a good thing. But if you are planning on writing and they haven't fucked you up, well, you've got nothing to go on, so then they've fucked you up good and proper.

it is seldom at the frontier that discoveries are made but more often in the dustbin.

She found that after she had written something down, she was happy. Happy as if she had been reading. And it came to her again that did not want to simply be a reader. A reader was next door to being a spectator where as when she was writing she was doing. And doing was her duty.

Asked where his inspiration came from, he said fiercely: 'It doesn't come, Your Majesty. You have to go out and fetch it.

You don't put your life into your books. You find it there.

Larkin says that they fuck you up, your mum and dad. And if you end up writing, then that's fine because if they have, then you've got something to write about. But if they haven't fucked you up, you don't have anything to write about, so then they've fucked you up good and proper.

Esplodere? disse la regina. Ma era Anita Brookner!. Il giovane, decisamente poco ossequioso, disse che magari la sicurezza l'aveva scambiato per un ordigno. E la regina: Ma certamente. Perché lo è. Un libro è un ordigno per infiammare l'immaginazione.

Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and as much creatures of the readers imagination as the characters in their books.

If reading softens one up, writing does the reverse. You have to be tough, do you not?

A book is a device to ignite the imagination

Presto la regina decise che probabilmente era meglio incontrare gli autori dentro le pagine dei romanzi, creature dell'immaginazione del lettore come i personaggi. Non sembravano neppure grati a chi aveva letto i loro libri; erano loro ad averci fatto la cortesia di scriverli.

Kyetäkseen kirjoittamaan ihmisen on oltava sitkeä.

An authentic life does not require anyone else's approval for your creative choices.