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Creativity Quotes
"An idea occurs in the mind, where it is confined and useless. An idea lives when it leaves the mind."
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"No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there."
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"That was originally what I had loved him for: that at a period when our native land was nude and crude and provincial, when the famous 'atmosphere' it is supposed to lack was not even missed, when literature was lonely there and art and form akmost impossible, he had found the means to live and write like one of the first; to be free and general and not at all afraid; to feel, understand, and express everything."
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"If you want to change the world, change the metaphor."
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"The universe will express itself as long as somebody will be able to say, 'I read, therefore it writes."
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"A design can excel at one challenge only by compromising at others."
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"The imagination of a boy is healthy and the mature imagination of a man is healthy but there is a space of life between in which the soul is in ferment the character undecided the way of life uncertain."
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"Genius in truth means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way."
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"I have always thought that the place where you sleep or the place you share with your partner should be separate from the place where you write. The domestic rituals and details somehow kill the imagination. They kill the demon in me."
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"You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page."
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"Perhaps creativity's greatest mercy is this: By completely absorbing our attention for a short and magical spell, it can relieve us temporarily from the dreadful burden of being who we are. Best of all, at the end of your creative adventure, you have a souvenir-something that you made, something to remind you forever of your brief but transformative encounter with inspiration."
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"Discover your own style. Don't try to repeat what has already been written - have the courage to do your own thing and don't be afraid to do something different."
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"Originality of mind untainted,And enthusiasm for life, unlimited."
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"Colorless green ideas sleep furiouslythree old owls on a chest of drawerswere screwingthe daughter of the doctor.But then the mother called them,colorless green ideas slepp furiously."
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"Never to rush something I was creating, but instead let it come into being as if it had a soul of it's own."
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"You're too sane for a lunatic girl like me. You live in reality, while I tango in the jungle of my imagination making love to firecracker dreams."
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"What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do."
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"Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas."
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"I see a creative process as a necessarily thievish undertaking. Dig beneath a beautiful piece of writing, Monsieur Boustouler, and you will find all manner of dishonor. Creating means vandalizing the lives of other people, turning them into unwilling and unwitting participants. You steal their desires, their dreams, pocket their flaws, their suffering. You take what does not belong to you. You do this knowingly."
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"You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally."
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"Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician."
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"Many writers were better before they became famous."
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"How do I work? I grope."
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"It's a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want to."
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"One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions."
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"Creative people are optimistic realists to discover versatility."
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"Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything. If you don't write stories you love, you'll never make it. If you don't write stories that other people love, you'll never make it."
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"The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak."
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"You are the creator. Get out that old box of paints and brushes and start drawing love into your life."
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"Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process."
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"A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires."
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"You have the itch for writing born in you. It's quite incurable. What are you going to do with it?"
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"She sighed once, wishing she had a talent for the details of telling stories. She wasn't bad at themes, she mused, but she could never figure out how to turn a theme into an engaging tale. So she read instead, and admired those who could."
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"You know you possess the soul of an artist when, each time you sit down to create, the whole universe lays itself at your feet."
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"Now go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here."
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"A writer of fiction is really... a congenital liar who invents from his own knowledge or that of other men."
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"Wrote you a poem or two. You didn't enjoy them, but I did for you."
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"The final reward of the dead - to die no more."
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"Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense than misapply it as you do."
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"I write description in longhand because that's hardest for me and you're closer to the paper when you work by hand, but I use the typewriter for dialogue because people speak like a typewriter works."
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"One problem with ideas, however valid, is that they are static and impersonal, whereas a person is active and dynamic."
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"God is really another artist. He invented the giraffe the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things."
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"I have never created anything in my life that did not make me feel, at some point or another, like I was the guy who just walked into a fancy ball wearing a homemade lobster costume."
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"I grow grandiose, which is a good sign I should become prosaic."
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"Imagination grows by exercise and contrary to common belief is more powerful in the mature than in the young."
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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"Writers are the most tormented of all the different categories of artists that are out there in the world."
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"There is the happiness which comes from creative effort. The joy of dreaming, creating, building, whether in painting a picture, writing an epic, singing a song, composing a symphony, devising new invention, creating a vast industry."
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"When I teach seminars, I tell people, 'Your stuff has to look like something that's out there, because otherwise nobody will take a chance on you.'"
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