Quotes about Creativity

Cynicism always comes clothed in "realism". The alternatives to begin with an act of imagination. Can we imagine another way?

Clearly, human transformative activity depends upon a transformed imagination. Numbness does not hurt like torture, but in a quite parallel way, numbness robs us of our capability for humanity.

If an Artist love his Art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in his own.

For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusion of poetry. A hero of fiction that never existed is just as valuable to me as a hero of history that existed a thousand years ago.

Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild.

In leadership, energy is one of the essential ingredients needed for bringing any sense of new to the table. It's energy that produces excitement in others.

As an Odd-Fish, it is not my job to be right,' said Sir Oort. 'It is my job to be wrong in new and exciting ways.

Artists cannot be trained. One does not become an artist by acquiring certain skills or techniques, though one can use any number of skills and techniques in artistic activity. The creative is found in anyone who is prepared for surprise. Such a person cannot go to school to be an artist, but can only go to school as an artist.

The paradox in our relation to nature is that the more deeply a culture respects the indifference of nature, the more creatively it will call upon its own spontaneity in response. The more clearly we remind ourselves that we can have no unnatural influence on nature, the more our culture will embody a freedom to embrace surprise and unpredictability.

Deviancy, however, is the very essence of culture. Whoever merely follows the script, merely repeating the past, is culturally impoverished.

I always have a quotation for everything--it saves original thinking.

How can I find the words? Poets have taken them all and left me with nothing to say or do Except to teach me for the first time what they meant.