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Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.
Sep 10, 2025
Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.
you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree.
A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude.
Good artists copy, great artists steal.
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.
Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time.
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.
Art is a man's nature; nature is God's art.
Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite - getting something down.
Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.
The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun
Select only things to steal that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.
Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul.
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.
I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.
Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.
Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.
Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt; perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.
An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.
If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something.
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things.
I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
For great things do not done just happen by impulse but are a succession of small things linked together.
Action is the foundational key to all success.
The painting has a life of its own
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.