Quotes About Creativity

All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. JL Borges

If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven, Then, to the measure of that heaven-born light, Shine, Poet! In thy place, and be content. . . —WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I have never seen so many ugly dresses. I cannot find this dress, which was woven out of daydreams and naiveté.

My work is awfully labored just now. Sometimes it has the most wondrous life of its own, it fairly pulls me along—rather like wind surfing! At other times, it drags and mopes, so that I despair of ever writing another word or drawing another picture. I've found that if one keeps pushing along during the mopes, out will flash the most exhilarating thought or idea—a way of doing something that I had never seen before—and then, one is off again, and hold on to your hat!

I've found that if one keeps pushing along during the mopes, out will flash the most exhilarating thought or idea—a way of doing something that I had never seen

As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Violà! Bookshelves!

came pouring out, nor had he ever heard anything like it; it was so clear

As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Voila! Bookshelves!

Inspiration is very nice when you get it. It's like being given a present you weren't expecting. You don't hand the present back and say, 'My birthday's not till November.' You take it and run.

No one has the right to enter literature without fresh new ideas. We've got too many dexterous drudges as it is.

To be an artist it is not necessary to make a living from our creations. Nor is it necessary to have work hanging in fine museums or the praise of critics. To be an artist it is necessary to live with our eyes wide open, to breath in the colors of mountain and sky, to know the sound of leaves rustling, the smell of snow, the texture of bark. To be an artist is to notice every beautiful and tragic thing, to cry freely, to collect experience and shape it into forms that others can share.

Find what brings you joy and go there.

There are a lot of things we don't have in life, but time is not one of them. Time is all we have. One lifetime under this name, to produce a body of work that says, "This is how I saw the world." Your work is worthy of whatever time it takes.

Osciluji mezi dobrem a zlem. Mezi kycem a nekycem, mezi pornografii a krasnem. Rad ze sebe delam idiota, ale nikdy jsem nemyslel na penize. Ty prisly az nakonec. Nemyslet na penize - jedine tak lze stvorit neco hodnotneho.

It is our lot to take what we have, make of it what we will. We are meant to finger the leftovers, rock our old dolls, clutch wooden angels to our breasts.

Perhaps an eternal law of art is that, for everything discovered, something of value is forgotten.

Art is free," he said, "and is not to be diminished by any chains of craftsmanship.

ONE CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT WAS THAT ART escaped from religion and into the larger world.

Schubert had been one of the first composers to groan, "Who can do anything after Beethoven?

Omdat de e-toets van mijn schrijfmachine los zit - in plaats van resoluut in te grijpen en het ding vast te plakken probeer ik hem iedere keer met een splintertje van een lucifer vast te zetten, wat eigenlijk niet zo verwonderlijk is want het valt je pas op als je de machine gebruikt en dan kan je niet gaan plakken - moest ik denken aan een voortand van mij waar ook wat beweging in zit.

De muze moet je bed niet genaken, maar ze moet een hersenschim blijven waar je achteraan jaagt, een onbereikbare Dulcinea.

tapped his desk, staring at the monitor as if a

Of all writers, [Jane Austen] is the most adept at creating both characters who seem to possess an independent existence and a narrator to whom readers feel able to turn, as if to an intimate friend.

As her writing developed, Jane Austen recognised that there were different ways of creating original works of art and that the skills acquired from experience and experimentation were ultimately as important as the initial sparks of inspiration.