Quotes about Creativity

When an idea pops into our head and we think, "No, this is too crazy," … that's the idea we want. When we think, "This notion is completely off the wall … should I even take the time to work on this?" … the answer is yes. Never doubt the soup. Never say no. The answer is always yes.

Remember, the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas. To the gods the supreme sin is not rape or murder, but pride. To think of yourself as a mercenary, a gun for hire, implants the proper humility.

A pro views her work as craft, not art. Not because she believes art is devoid of a mystical dimension. On the contrary. She understands that all creative endeavor is holy, but she doesn't dwell on it. She knows if she thinks about that too much, it will paralyze her. So she concentrates on technique. The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods.

To labor in the arts for any other reason than love, is prostitution.

The inner critic? His ass is not permitted in the building.

Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling. A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul's seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star's beacon and Polaris.

Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional, crazy heart. If your notion violates every precept I've set forth in these pages, tell me to go to hell. Do what that voice says.

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

The professional blows critics off. He doesn't even hear them. Critics, he reminds himself, are the unwitting mouthpieces of Resistance and as such can be truly cunning and pernicious. They can articulate in their reviews the same toxic venom that Resistance itself concocts inside our heads. That is their real evil. Not that we believe them, but that we believe the Resistance in our own minds, for which critics serve as unconscious spokespersons.

We don't tell ourselves, I'm never going to write my symphony. Instead we say, I am going to write my symphony; I'm just going to start tomorrow.

It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet. You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

I read R.D. Laing, I read Victor Frankl. Anything by Ken Kesey or Peter Matthiessen, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, R. Crumb, Bob Dylan. These sacred texts are passed from one hand to another like relics of a religious past or harbingers of a new faith.