Tom Botwid > Tom's Quotes

“Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”
― C.E.M. Joad

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
― Albert Einstein

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”
― Henry Thomas Buckle

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. ”
― Pablo Picasso, Pablo Picasso: Metamorphoses of the Human Form : Graphic Works, 1895-1972

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.”
― Albert Einstein

“Creativity takes courage. ”
― Henri Matisse

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”
― Ayn Rand

“Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness.”
― Pablo Picasso

“Nothing is original. 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. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."

[MovieMaker Magazine #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ]”
― Jim Jarmusch

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“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”
― Pablo Picasso

“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.”
― Pablo Picasso

“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
― Maya Angelou

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
― Mary Oliver

“Nothing is more creative... nor destructive... than a brilliant mind with a purpose.”
― Dan Brown, Inferno

“If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.”
― Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

“There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.”
― Coco Chanel

“I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare.”
― Maya Angelou

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
― Scott Adams

“I think that you’ve got to make something that pleases you and hope that other people feel the same way.”
― Thomas Keller

“Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.”
― Osho, Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”
― Erich Fromm

“Your greatest creation is your creative life. It's all in your hands.”
― Sara Zarr

“If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), "Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?" chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

“Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.”
― Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. ”
― Carl Gustav Jung