99 Quotes by Eric Maisel

If you wait for a better time to create, better than this very moment, if you wait until you feel settled, divinely inspired, perfectly centered, unburdened of your usual worries, or free of your own skin, forget about it. You will still be waiting tomorrow and the next day, wondering why you never managed to begin, wondering.

We see how boredom arises as a special, terrible problem for smart people. A smart person has a lively brain; that brain wants to work; it is primed to think; and if you give it nothing to do, it will do nothing for as long as it can bear to do nothing, but it will not be happy. It will be bored and, worse, begin to doubt the meaningfulness of life.

A composition is an arrangement, built out of parts, that aims at seamlessness.

Do I doubt the painting I’ve just painted because it is not right or because I can never like what I do?

The more sophisticated we become – as we pierce reality and see the void beyond – the more our sense of wonder is destroyed, along with our reasons for being.

Live intensely and dangerously. The world may not depend on your efforts, but you do.

The artist, who must venture into the studio and risk there, and then venture into the marketplace and risk again, is obliged to learn how her defences work, so that she can drop and raise her guard instantly.

An artist’s fine goal is to manifest a well-nigh heroic self-discipline, carefully attending to all that concerns him.

Rekindling hope, engaging in inner work, and venturing into the world amount to a complete plan for picking yourself up when you’re down.