The journey of being a creative can be like a smooth road. You glide from point A to point B. Most often; it is a bumpy, curvy road with fantastic ideas and poor execution or a mediocre idea and stunning execution. Self-doubt can cause breakdowns (to continue the metaphor). If you choose to be a full-time creative, you need ways to manage the ups and downs, curves, and occasional breakdowns. The best way to do this is to know your what, who, how and why of creativity. Your answers will help motivate and inspire you. Here are some quotes to help you get started or clarify your answers.
What is Creativity?
Creativity is more than a definition found in a dictionary.
The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.”
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.”
George Bernard Shaw
Creativity involves breaking out of expected patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”
Edward de Bono
It’s impossible to explain creativity. It’s like asking a bird, ‘How do you fly?’ You just do.”
Eric Jerome Dickey
When Can You Be Creative?
Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.” Bruce Garrabrandt
Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference.”
Nolan Bushnell
Who Are Creatives?
There’s room for everybody on the planet to be creative and conscious if you are your own person. If you’re trying to be like somebody else, then there isn’t.”
Tori Amos
The artist is not a special kind of person; rather each person is a special kind of artist.”
Ananda Coomaraswamy
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
The creative adult is the child who survived.“
Ursula Leguin
How to be Creative
Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
Rumi
Sometimes you’ve got to let everything go – purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything… whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.”
Tina Turner
Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.”
David Lynch
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.”
Mary Shelley
Everything you can imagine is real.”
Pablo Picasso
Why Be Creative?
For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.”
Amor Towles
Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living.”
Madeleine L’Engle
To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.”
Kurt Vonnegut
Your What, Who, How, and Why Be Creative
Longtime readers of this blog know that helping people find the courage to express their creative side is a passion of mine. For more encouragement read how your creativity doesn’t have to be perfect.
Whether you’ve assessed your what, who, how and why be creative or not, I hope one or two of these quotes gave you creativity a boost today.
What motivates or inspires you on your creative journey?