Quotes About Creativity

Art is Cinderella, who stayed at home because that's how it had to be.

I enjoy using words. Or rather: I enjoy making words work.

The truly superior (and the happiest) men are those who, perceiving that everything is a fiction, make up their own novel before someone else does it for them and, like Machiavelli, don courtly robes in order to write in secret.

Pero no me engaño, escribo, sumo, y la escritura sigue, como hecha por un empleado cualquiera de esta casa.

Todo arte es una forma de literatura, porque consiste en expresar algo. Hay dos formas de expresarlo: hablar y callarse. Las artes que no pertenecen a la literatura son la proyección de un silencio expresivo.

The cultivation of the imagination is hindered by the cultivation of life. It is the uncommon man who rules.

Whatever I feel is felt against my will so that I can write that I felt it.

Civilizations appear only to exist in order to produce art and literature, for what speaks of them, what remains of them, are words.

It doesn't faze me when my dreams are interrupted; they're so gentle that I keep dreaming them as I speak, write, answer, or even discuss.

Scrivere è dimenticare. La letteratura è il modo più piacevole di ignorare la vita.

Everything we do, in art or in life, is the imperfect copy of what we thought of doing.

visito con solemnidad mientras escribo. Tengo salas especiales, recordadas por otros en los resquicios de la figuración, donde me deleito analizando lo que no siento y me examino como si examinara un cuadro en la sombra.

Nunca he podido leer un libro entregándome a él; siempre, a cada paso, el comentario de la inteligencia o de la imaginación me ha interrumpido la secuencia de la propia narrativa. Después de unos minutos, quien escribía era yo, y lo que estaba escrito no estaba en ninguna parte.

Freedom would mean rest, artistic achievement, the intellectual fulfillment of my being.

I, however, who in this transitory life am nothing, can enjoy the thought of the future reading this very page, since I do actually write it; I can take pride – like a father in his son – in the fame I will have, since at least I have something that could bring me fame.

I'm always astonished whenever I finish anything. Astonished and depressed. My desire for perfection should prevent me from ever finishing anything; it should prevent me even from starting.

A arte serve de fuga para a sensilidade que a acção teve de esquecer.

Everything we do, in art and life, is the imperfect copy of what we intended.

Porque no vayáis a creer que escribo para publicar, ni para escribir, ni siquiera por hacer arte. Escribo porque ese es el fin, la perfección suprema, la perfección temperamentalmente ilógica [...] de mi cultivo de estados del alma.

Let the Gods change my dreams, but not my gift for dreaming. — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics, 2002)

To live is to crochet according to a pattern we were given. But while doing it the mind is at liberty, and all enchanted princes can stroll in their parks between one and another plunge of the hooked ivory needle. Needlework of things … Intervals … Nothing …

La letteratura, come tutta l'arte, è la confessione che la vita non basta.

Diktaren är en låtsare. / Han låtsas så fullständigt / att han till och med låtsas ha ont / av de smärtor han verkligen känner.

No he hecho más que soñar. Ése ha sido y sigue siendo, incluso, el sentido de mi vida. Nunca he tenido otra preocupación verdadera que no fuese mi vida interior. Los mayores dolores de mi vida se desvanecen cuando, al abrir la ventana hacia la calle de mis sueños, consigo enajenarme en la visión de su movimiento.