In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.

Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line.

The battle with the gods thus hinges on our own mortality! Creativity is a yearning for immortality.

Escapist creativity is that which lacks encounter.

By the creative act, however, we are able to reach beyond our own death. This is why creativity is so important and why we need to confront the problem of the relationship between creativity and death.

The concept of encounter also enables us to make clearer the important distinction between talent and creativity. Talent may well have its neurological correlates and can be studied as “given” to a person. A man or woman may have talent whether he or she uses it or not; talent can probably be measured in the person as such. But creativity can be seen only in the act. If we were purists, we would not speak of a “creative person,” but only of a creative act.

These poets and other creative persons are the ones who express being itself, he held. As I would put it, these are the ones who enlarge human consciousness. Their creativity is the most basic manifestation of a man or woman fulfilling his or her own being in the world.

Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one's death.

The creative process must be explored... as the expression of the normal people in the act of actualizing themselves.