Quotes About Creativity

But stories aren't always lies. They are things stored in all our imaginations-hence the name stories-and it is the author's job to point them out.

She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best. And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free.

artist   A human who notices the ridiculousness of being a human and paints, writes, builds, sculpts, films, acts, plays, sings, cries about it.

Magic was useless by itself. Making impossibilities possibilities was harder than it looked.

Ten books that helped my mind 1.  Letters to a Young Poet – Rainer Maria Rilke 2. Poems – Emily Dickinson 3. Henry David Thoreau's journal 4.  When Things Fall Apart – Pema Chödrön 5.  The House at Pooh Corner – A.A. Milne 6.  Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott 7. Meditations – Marcus Aurelius 8. Tao Te Ching – Laozi 9. Serious Concerns – Wendy Cope 10. Dream Work – Mary Oliver

Fiction felt not like an escape from truth, but a release into it.

For me, reading was never an antisocial activity. It was deeply social. It was the most profound kind of socializing there was. A deep connection to the imagination of another human being. A way to connect without the many filters society normally demands.

There are more possible ways to play a game of chess than the amount of atoms in the observable universe. So

if books had to replicate our exact experience of the world to be useful, the only books worth reading would be written by ourselves.

People often use the word 'despite' in the context of mental illness. So-and-so did such-and-such despite having depression/anxiety/OCD/agoraphobia/whatever. But sometimes that 'despite' should be a 'because'. For instance, I write because of depression. I was not a writer before. The intensity needed - to explore things with relentless curiosity and energy - simply wasn't there.

When I opened my eyes I saw Tchaikovsky with his baton, seemingly pulling the music right out of the air, as if music was something already in the atmosphere.

Adjusting her hands into position for E-flat major, she was momentarily distracted by a tattoo on her weirdly hairless forearm, written in beautifully angled calligraphic letters. It was a quote from Henry David Thoreau. All good things are wild and free.

Humans, as a rule, don't like mad people unless they are good at painting, and only then once they are dead. But the definition of mad, on Earth, seems to be very unclear and inconsistent. What is perfectly sane in one era turns out to be insane in another.

You can never run out of possibilities.

Imposibil. O veche injuratura din limba elfa.

did notice that some of the buildings were larger and—relatively speaking—more ornately designed than others. Temples to the orgasm, I imagined.

if you speak to yourself people think you are mad but if you write the same things they think you are clever.

Bücher sind Bäume, die träumen.

It's not the technique, it's the method. It's not the words, it's the melody.

Reading isn't important because it helps to get you a job. It's important because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you're given.

Letters to a Young Poet—Rainer Maria Rilke Poems—Emily Dickinson Henry David Thoreau's journal When Things Fall Apart—Pema Chödrön The House at Pooh Corner—A. A. Milne Bird by Bird—Anne Lamott Meditations—Marcus Aurelius Tao Te Ching—Laozi Serious Concerns—Wendy Cope Dream Work—Mary Oliver

So she stopped trying to think about what to write and, in sheer exasperation, just put down the first thing that came to her, the thing that she felt inside her like a defiant silent roar that could overpower any external destruction. The one truth she had, a truth

Hope is a beautiful thing to find in art or stories or music.

If you find that you are short of funds in the field, remember that any paper can be mind augmented to perform in the place of real money.