Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.
If we do not exepect the unexpected, we will never find it.
In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.
All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives its final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.
No one has ever been able to define or synthesize that precarious, splendid, and perhaps untidy instant when the creative process begins. This is what the uniqueness of the artist is all about. The transcendent right of the artist is the right to create even though he may not always know what he is doing.
Invention is one of the great marks of genius, but if we consult experience, we shall find, that it is by being conversant with the inventions of others, that we learn to invent: as by reading the thoughts of others we learn to think.
You can't shoot an idea.
It would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power to an inborn talent. In art, the genius creator is not just a gifted being, but a person who has succeeded in arranging for their appointed end, a complex of activities, of which the work is the outcome. The artist begins with a vision -- a creative operation requiring an effort. Creativity takes courage.
Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
