“A lot of the time, creativity comes from structure. When you have those parameters and structure, then within that you can be creative. If you don’t have structure, you’re just aimlessly doing stuff.”
Kobe Bryant, via Think Like A Monk (Page 132)
“Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions. It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to, but does not necessarily have at once. Privacy, then. A place apart––to pace, to chew pencils, to scribble and erase and scribble again.”
Mary Oliver
“Our job as professionals is to show up and do the work. Not simply respond to incoming or do the chores, but to create and innovate. And yet, some days feel more conducive than others. There are moments when it simply flows. When the surf’s up, cancel everything else. Don’t waste it. Postpone the dentist, outsource the grocery shopping and leave your email for now. Make hay.”
Seth Godin
“Creativity is an utterly human skill that can’t be automated. But technology can sweep away some of the more tedious parts of the process, like research or data transfer or transcription. It can give you space to do the work that only you can do.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 158)
“Brains sabotage the most beautiful ideas. So, when you ask me: how can I do work I love—while also maybe traveling more and enjoying my life and learning the bagpipes and doing the kinds of creative projects I dream about? I’ll tell you what the first question is: Can you do what is necessary? Can you silence your brain long enough to actually attempt something great?“
Ash Ambirge
“My aunt and uncle in their country home taught me how to be okay with sitting still, a quality that has been as important to my career as anything. To be a decent writer, you have to be okay with either writing or doing absolutely nothing. I’m a firm believer that the only way to be creative is to sit around and do nothing until you get bored enough to entertain yourself.”
Cole Schafer
“I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing — their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses. To sit alone without any electric light is curiously creative. I have my best ideas at dawn or at nightfall, but not if I switch on the lights — then I start thinking about projects, deadlines, demands, and the shadows and shapes of the house become objects, not suggestions, things that need to done, not a background to thought.”
Jeanette Winterson, The Guardian
“[Hemingway] would always end a writing session only when he knew what came next in the story. Instead of exhausting every last idea and bit of energy, he would stop when the next plot point became clear. This meant that the next time he sat down to work on his story, he knew exactly where to start. He built himself a bridge to the next day, using today’s energy and momentum to fuel tomorrow’s writing.”
Tiago Forte
“The greatest impediment to creativity is your impatience, the almost inevitable desire to hurry up the process, express something, and make a splash.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 93)
“We all possess an inborn creative force that wants to become active. This is the gift of our Original Mind, which reveals such potential. The human mind is naturally creative, constantly looking to make associations and connections between things and ideas. It wants to explore, to discover new aspects of the world, and to invent. To express this creative force is our greatest desire, and the stifling of it the source of our misery.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 90)
“The truth is that creative activity is one that involves the entire self—our emotions, our levels of energy, our characters, and our minds. To make a discovery, to invent something that connects with the public, to fashion a work of art that is meaningful, inevitably requires time and effort. This often entails years of experimentation, various setbacks and failures, and the need to maintain a high level of focus. You must have patience and faith that what you are doing will yield something important.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 29)
“Being an artist is not for the faint of heart. It involves a lot of risk-taking, a lot of bravery, and a lot of not subscribing nor giving a fuck about what others think. We dance around uncertainties, the unknown, and the extraordinary every single day. But we live our lives based on a feeling, a vision, some voice telling us to paint it, write it, draw it, tell it, dance it, act it. We make worlds so others can see, tell stories so others can learn how to speak, dance and make music so people can learn how to hear, capture moments so people can see the unseen, paint colors and share emotions so people can learn how to express, create alternate universes so people can wake up to all the possibilities they haven’t afforded for themselves. Don’t go into the arts, they’ll say. But without creativity and art – the living are just walking half dead.”
Stephanie Dandan, Blog
