Quotes About Creativity

the worst kind of one-party state "invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.

satirist Caran d'Ache

Thera started sputtering. "You fool. You idiot." She stopped because Blaethe's response was much pithier and far more creative. She nodded approvingly. "What he said.

Swearwords were one of the best things humans had invented...

He gently rapped her nose with his finger. "But that means you can't go telling him our secrets." Jaenelle looked at him, wide-eyed. "Do we have any?" "Not yet," he grumped, "but I'll make one up just so we do.

Most of the truly remarkable experiences I've had in theatre have filled me with uncertainty and disorientation

If what Picasso proposed is true, that the first stroke on the canvas is always a mistake, it is best to get on with the mistake, without delay, earlier rather than later. Write one sentence, make one choice or point at something and say "Yes." And then, as the process unfolds, and as long as I keep at it and stay attentive and resolute, making adjustments to each mistake, things eventually fall into place.

But innovation and invention do not only happen with smart people who have all of the answers. Innovation results from trial and error. The task is to make good mistakes, good errors, in the right direction.

Limits are a necessary partner in the creative act as well as in the crafting of a successful life. What matters is the ability to look around and accurately recognize what is working for you and what is working against you, adjusting to the realities of the situation and mining the potential of the limits with invention and energy.

Every creative act involves a leap into the void. The leap has to occur at the right moment and yet the time for the leap is never prescribed. In the midst of a leap, there are no guarantees. To leap can often cause acute embarrassment. Embarrassment is a partner in the creative act—a key collaborator.

she made it clear that artists and audiences need to find the inner capacity to meet an event with spaciousness and a sense of possibility. Both life and art can prepare us for the openness that we need to bring ourselves to the unfolding moment.

I am obnoxious to each carping tongueWho says my hand a needle better fits,A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong,For such despite they cast on female wits:If what I do prove well, it won't advance,They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance.

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue/ Who says my hand a needle better fits./ A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong/ For such despite they cast on female wits;/ If what I do prove well, it won't advance,/ They'll say it's stolen, or else, it was by chance.

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue who says my hand a needle better fits.

You can plant a dream.

Sometimes I dream a sentence and write it down. It's usually nonsense, but sometimes it seems a key to another world.

If prose is a house, poetry is a man on fire running quite fast through it".

I will not stop singing the Muses who set me dancing.

what is the difference between poetry and prose you know the old analogies prose is a house poetry a man in flames running quite fast through it

It is a black-and-white photograph showing a naked young man in fetal position. He has entitled it "No Tail!" The fantastic fingerwork of his wings is outspread on the bed like a black lace map of South America.

Fiction forms what streams in us. Naturally it is suspect.

Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.

Each night about this time he puts on sadness like a garment and goes on writing.

Writing is mostly a case of mood management. The emotion you have is not absolute, it is temporary. It may be useful, but it is not the truth. It is not you.