Quotes About Creativity

Greatness is never achieved by trying to imitate the greatness of another. Greatness is chipping away at all that does not belong to you and then expressing yourself so truly that others can't help but recognize it.

Dear Die-ary, today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender. I'm wondering if, maybe, there really is something wrong with me.

I don't do my work for any kind of group in particular, except for hobos, who just plain kick ass and light up my life.

I never killed anyone. I avoid going over that edge by writing about a guy who has taken a flying leap over it.

With her own hand she'd painted herself into a corner, and then out of the picture altogether.

I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we weren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves, just as Ovid's masterwork transformed me.

It's a sort of literary act of survival. I don't have many words to express myself--rather, the opposite. I'm aware of a state of deprivation. And yet, at the same time, I feel free, light. I rediscover the reason that I write, the joy as well as the need.

If the process of writing is a dream, the book cover represents the awakening.

I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we we weren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves, just as Ovid's masterwork transformed me.

And yet my lexicon develops without logic, in a darting, fleeting manner. The words appear, accompany me for a while, then, often without warning, abandon me.

And yet I know that expressing oneself necessarily means being different. The writer's voice is a singular one, solitary. Art is nothing other than the freedom to express oneself in any language, in whatever manner, dressed any which way.

Personally, I think it deplorable to place the words and opinions of others on the book jacket. I want the first words read by the reader of my book to be written by me.

In the face of everything that seems to me unattainable, I marvel. Without a sense of marvel at things, without wonder, one can't create anything.

Translation will open up entire realms of possibilities, unforeseen pathways that will newly guide and inspire the writer's work, and possibly even transform it. For to translate is to look into a mirror and see someone other than oneself.

Why, as an adult, as a writer, am I interested in this new relationship with imperfection? What does it offer me? I would say a stunning clarity, a more profound self-awareness. Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.

I start with very short pieces, usually no more than a handwritten page. I try to focus on something specific: a person, a moment, a place. I do what I ask my student to do when I teach creative writing. I explain to them that such fragments are the first steps to take before constructing a story. I think a writer should observe the real world before imagining a nonexistent one.

Voor mij is het vermogen van kunst het vermogen om ons wakker te schudden, om ons diep te raken, ons te veranderen. Wat zoeken we als we een roman lezen, een film kijken, naar een muziekstuk luisteren? We zoeken iets wat ons verplaatst, iets waarvan we ons eerder niet bewust waren. We willen onszelf transformeren.

Direi una chiarezza sbalorditiva, una consapevolezza piú profonda di me stessa. L'imperfezione dà lo spunto all'invenzione, all'immaginazione, alla creatività. Stimola. Più mi sento imperfetta, più mi sento viva.

I became a writer in America, but I set my first stories in Calcutta, a city where I have never lived, far from the country where I grew up, and which I knew much better. Why? Because I needed distance between me and the creative space.

When I began writing stories as a child, I wrote copies of what I read, and in many respects, that is what I've have continued doing, in only a slightly less obvious way. The illusion of artistic freedom is just that, an illusion. No words are "my words"—I merely arrange and use them in a certain way.

It was only by self-translating that I finally understood what Paul Valéry meant when he said that a work of art was never finished, only abandoned... The act of self-translation enables the author to restore a previously published work to its most vital and dynamic state—that of a work-in-progress—and to repair and recalibrate as needed.

In the months before coming to Italy, I was looking for another direction for my writing. I wanted a new approach. I didn't know that the language I had studied slowly for many years in America would, finally, give me the direction.

In questo libro la lingua non è soltanto lo strumento ma anche il soggetto. L'italiano resta la maschera, il filtro, lo sbocco, il mezzo. Il distacco senza il quale non riesco a creare niente. Ed è questo nuovo distacco che mi aiuta a mostrare il mio volto.

I trust the [series] writers when I'm filming, because it's interesting for me to go in every week and see what's going to happen, and the challenge for me as the actor is to make it work.