“If you want to be a good writer, if you want to be a writer that has something to say, you can’t be afraid to write your truths, even if these truths are going to hurt some people around you. Good writers hurt their friends from time to time, this is the cost of doing business, this is the cost of writing truths.”
Cole Schafer
“You’ve got stuff in your head that no one else has got. And you’ve got stuff in your head that you think you bear alone, but I PROMISE you share with so many. Only way to know the difference is to spill it out. On paper, into a mic, to a shrink, onto a canvas.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Gmorning, Gnight
“The difference between the neurotic and the creative is that the neurotic is precisely the one who cannot create. He cannot marshal a response. Both the artist and the neurotic are really sensitive. They both are overwhelmed by the world. They both take in the world and are wrestling with the world. But, the artist takes that in and reworks it into an active work project—there is kind of a feedback loop, a circularity. There’s a response that says, ‘I am here. I felt this. And it matters.’ And it is in the ability to respond to that experience that solicits a kind of exorcism that frees you from your demons. The neurotic cannot do that. So he chokes on his introversions.”
Jason Silva, via Aubrey Marcus Podcast
“Only when we stop pretending to be something we are not—when we no longer feel the need to hide or overcompensate for either our weaknesses or our gifts—will we know the freedom of expressing our authentic self and have the ability to make choices that are based on the life we truly desire to live.”
Debbie Ford, The Shadow Effect (Page 106)
“Every one of us has constructed an ego-based identity in which we have assigned ourselves an acceptable role that eventually smothers our full self-expression. Rather than being who we really are, we become a characterization of the person we think we ‘should’ be.”
Debbie Ford, The Shadow Effect (Page 100)
“If I am transparent enough to myself, then I can become less afraid of those hidden selves that my transparency may reveal to others. If I reveal myself without worrying about how others will respond, then some will care, though others may not. But who can love me, if no one knows me? I must risk it, or live alone. It is enough that I must die alone. I am determined to let down, whatever the risks, if it means that I may have whatever is there for me.”
Sheldon Kopp, If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him, via Sunbeams (Page 93)
“There is a field where all wonderful perfections of microscope and telescope fail. All exquisite niceties of weights and measure as well as that which is behind them, the keen and driving power of the mind. No facts, however indubitably detected, no effort or reason, however magnificently maintained, can prove that Bach’s music is beautiful.”
Edith Hamilton, Sunbeams (Page 17)
“I now live in woke mode. For me, every moment is a reawakening, a chance to meet myself exactly as I am. I’m finally allowing myself to just be. Be giddy. Be irritable. Be vulnerable. Be silly. Be exhilarated. Be whomever and however I am. That is my practice, my daily meditation. It’s also my daily prayer for all of us—that we allow others the same freedom of expression that we are learning to grant to ourselves.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 216)
“The magic in any art is not only in its technique but in its authenticity. Truth in its rawest form is what resonates most powerfully.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 39)
“I believe that we are here—on this star is space—to help one another. And first, we have to survive. And then we have to thrive. And to thrive—to express ourselves—we have to know ourselves. What do you love? If you get close to what you love, who you are will be revealed to you—and it expands.”
Ethan Hawke, TED
An Argument For Art — And Why You Should Be Creating With Every Opportunity You Get
Excerpt: Think about everything that has to happen before you even get to consider creating something. It’s a miracle that art is a thought for you…
Read More »An Argument For Art — And Why You Should Be Creating With Every Opportunity You Get
“Attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them—at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence.” ~ Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 28)
“Your task as a creative thinker is to actively explore the unconscious and contradictory parts of your personality, and to examine similar contradictions and tensions in the world at large. Expressing these tensions within your work in any medium will create a powerful effect on others, making them sense unconscious truths or feelings that have been obscured or repressed.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery
“There is vitality, a life force, energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware of the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open…” ~ Martha Graham, via How To Live A Good Life