Creativity Quotes

“The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.”
― Heraclitus

“Dive again and again into the river of uncertainty. Create in the dark, only then can you recognize the light.”
― Jyrki Vainonen

“I've been all over the world and I've never seen a statue of a critic.”
― Leonard Bernstein

“Think of yourself as a brand. You need to be remembered. What will they remember you for? What defines you? If you have it in you, do something that defines you. Invent something, develop a unique skill, get noticed for something — it creates a talking point.”
― Chris Arnold

“All good work requires self-revelation.”
― Sidney Lumet, Making Movies

“Fashion is ephemeral, dangerous and unfair.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

“The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up.”
― E.B. White, The Elements of Style

“Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Intimate Journals

“Whether you try too hard to fit in or you try too hard to stand out, it is of equal consequence: you exhaust your significance.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Be undeniably good.”
― Steve Martin

“Because, as we all know, it’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking. And it’s also easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things that we’re not so sure about.”
― John Cleese

“The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain.”
― Nikola Tesla, My Inventions

“A Gift for You
I send you...

A cottage retreat on a hill in Ireland. This cottage is filled with fresh flowers, art supplies, and a double-wide chaise lounge in front of a wood-burning fireplace. There is a cabinet near the front door, where your favorite meals appear, several times a day. Desserts are plentiful and calorie free. The closet is stocked with colorful robes and pajamas, and a painting in the bedroom slides aside to reveal a plasma television screen with every movie you've ever wanted to watch. A wooden mailbox at the end of the lane is filled daily with beguiling invitations to tea parties, horse-and-carriage rides, theatrical performances, and violin concerts. There is no obligation or need to respond.

You sleep deeply and peacefully each night, and feel profoundly healthy. This cottage is yours to return to at any time. ”
― Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK), Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People, and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day

“The beginning of wisdom, I believe, is our ability to accept an inherent messiness in our explanation of what's going on. Nowhere is it written that human minds should be able to give a full accounting of creation in all dimensions and on all levels. Ludwig Wittgenstein had the idea that philosophy should be what he called "true enough." I think that's a great idea. True enough is as true as can be gotten. The imagination is chaos. New forms are fetched out of it. The creative act is to let down the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended and then to attempt to bring out of it ideas.”
― Rupert Sheldrake

“This imaginary gift is a journey for your imagination.

I send you...
A luxury train ride. On this train are all the inspiring people you've ever wanted to meet or talk to. You glide from car to car, sitting or lying down on velvet lounge chairs, listening and asking questions. There is also a voluminous library on the train, with every book you've ever wanted to read or look at. Kind people bring you delicious tidbits to eat and nourishing liquids to drink. If you take a nap, time stands still until you return so you never miss anything. You receive a large journal filled with photographs, drawings and descriptions of your journey to take with you when you leave. You realize that you can board this train at any time.”
― Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

“Most people believe it is only by constraint they can get any good out of themselves, and so they live in a state of psychological distortion. It is his own self that each of them is most afraid of resembling. Each of them sets up a pattern and imitates it; he doesn't even choose the pattern he imitates: he accepts a pattern that has been chosen for him. And yet I verily believe there are other things to be read in man. But people don't dare to - they don't dare to turn the page. Laws of imitation! Laws of fear, I call them. The fear of finding oneself alone - that is what they suffer from - and so they don't find themselves at all. I detest such moral agoraphobia - the most odious cowardice I call it. Why, one always has to be alone to invent anything - but they don't want to invent anything. The part in each of us that we feel is different from other people is just the part that is rare, the part that makes our special value - and that is the very thing people try to suppress. They go on imitating. And yet they think they love life.”
― André Gide, The Immoralist

“To achieve lasting literature, fictional or factual, a writer needs perceptive vision, absorptive capacity, and creative strength.”
― Lawrence Clark Powell

“Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.”
― Leonard Bernstein

“Songwriting and poetry are so commonly birthed from underdogs because one can make even the ugliest situations admirable, or more beautiful than the beautiful situations - they are the most graceful media in which the lines of society are distorted.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Supposedly there's an actual, researched link between extreme creativity and mental illness, and I believe it because I've seen it with my own eyes.”
― Deb Caletti, Wild Roses

“There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.”
― Steve Jobs

“Create a guidebook of creative dreams

You can use a blank book or just blank paper clipped together. Put photographs or scraps from magazines in that represent your creative dreams. Draw, scribble, or paint in between the images. Make a list of creative dreams you've thought of or admire in others. ”
― Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

“Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order”
― Virginia Woolf

“DeathWish: You spent some time working with Courtney Love and Billy Corgan on a creative level, how did this experience help your growth as an artist?

EA: It didn't -- it stunted it entirely. I gave up over a year of my life and career helping Billy with his flop of an album and designing and building all of the costumes for his music video. With Courtney, we were friends, but I spent years working to record and promote her flop of an album only to find that my value increased every time I peed in an orange juice bottle so that she could fake her way through a drug test. Not exactly a haven for artistic growth.”
― Emilie Autumn

“The recipe for great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to gratify it.”
― Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

“Are IQ tests sacrosanct? Or do you think there is only one kind of intelligence? What about creativity? Or intuitive or emotional intelligence?”
― Abhaidev, The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit

“I sincerely believe that only those who are financially free can produce great works of art. Poor artists are too bothered about money and fame, which hampers their creativity. An artist shouldn’t have any financial pressure. One can’t create something poetic if commercial success is all one is concerned about.”
― Abhaidev, The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit

“Are we just radio sets? Tuned to a particular frequency? Are our brains simply tapping their potential from an invisible but universal thought cloud? Seriously, what is the source of our thoughts? How do artists create art? How do writers write? What is it that is doing the creating?”
― Abhaidev, The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit

“An artist without ideas is a mendicant; barren, he goes begging among the hours.”
― Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy

“Thanks for your encouraging words. But I know the grim realities of being an artist. Most of us would never make a mark in this world. Nearly all of us would be living in oblivion and would face utter neglect by society. You know what? I am prepared for that. It doesn’t matter whether people laud and appreciate my artistic skills or not. Or whether I live a life of non-recognition. I expect nothing. One becomes a true artist only when one creates art just for the sake of it and not for monetary gains or approval from people. I want to become a true artist. Yes, that would give me happiness.”
― Abhaidev, The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit