4,594 Quotes About Creativity

Any great art work … revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.

Sometimes an artist's first invention is herself.

I don't believe this shift from conquering problems to experiencing life is a one-generational shot or a single investment. I believe it's a whole signature which you try to set in motion and have some input into. But I'm not saying that women don't think or analyze. Or that white does not feel. I'm saying that we must never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy...

She soon learned, though, that giving weight to other people's opinions was creative nihilism; it was like being banished from the Land of No Words and exiled to the Land of All Bullshit.

When we show up to make art, we need to get still enough to hear what wants to be expressed though us, and then we need to step out of the way and let it. We must be willing to abide in a space of not knowing before we can settle into knowing." pg. 159

Imagination is not an icing on the cake of life but the oven in which it is baked.

He possessed the logic of all good intentions and a knowledge of all the tricks of his trade, and yet he never succeeded at anything, because he believed too much in the impossible. Surprising? Why so? He was forever in the act of conceiving it!

Anything creative requires a bit of acting,and filling in blanks with imagination.

Writing reminds me of carving a sculpture. The early rough hewing doesn't look too pretty but is necessary to reveal the chiseled artistry beneath.