“Yet he could not understand why he was so terribly attracted by her thighs, but he was, so much that he felt like taking the nerves of his body and coiling them one by one around them. The appetite of meat eating animals must be just this, coarse, voracious.”
― The Woman in the Dunes
― The Woman in the Dunes
“Thoughts and habits not conducive to the work: Believing you’re not good enough. Feeling you don’t have the energy it takes. Mistaking adopted rules for absolute truths. Not wanting to do the work (laziness). Not taking the work to its highest expression (settling). Having goals so ambitious that you can’t begin. Thinking you can only do your best work in certain conditions. Requiring specific tools or equipment to do the work. Abandoning a project as soon as it gets difficult. Feeling like you need permission to start or move forward. Letting a perceived need for funding, equipment, or support get in the way. Having too many ideas and not knowing where to start. Never finishing projects. Blaming circumstances or other people for interfering with your process. Romanticizing negative behaviors or addictions. Believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work. Prioritizing other activities and responsibilities over your commitment to making art. Distractibility and procrastination. Impatience. Thinking anything that’s out of your control is in your way.”
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
“I wanted a woman to be for me a steady ground, like the earth itself, where I could always be renewed.”
― Giovanni’s Room
― Giovanni’s Room
“Of all the great works that we can experience, nature is the most absolute and enduring. We can witness it change through the seasons. We can see it in the mountains, the oceans, the deserts, and the forest. We can watch the changes of the moon each night, and the relationship between the moon and the stars.”
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
“All art is a work in progress. It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. One in which we can’t predict the outcome. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment. If you start from the position that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to submerge yourself joyfully in the process of making things. We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease.”
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
― The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Khan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Khan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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