Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.” – Derek Sivers.
Whenever you’re at a loss for what move to make next, just ask yourself, “What would make a betterstory?
Filmmaker John Waters has said, “Nothing is more important than an unread library.
Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” – Gustave Flaubert.
What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere.
If you’re out of ideas, wash the dishes. Take a really long walk. Stare at a spot on the wall for as long as you can. As the artist Maira Kalman says, “Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind.
The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.
Don’t throw any of yourself away. Don’t worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. Don’t worry about unity – what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day you’ll look back and it will all make sense.
The great thing about remote or dead masters is that they can’t refuse you as an apprentice. You can learn whatever you want from them. They left their lesson plans in their work.
What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.” – William Ralph Inge.
The world is changing at such a rapid rate that it’s turning us all into amateurs. Even for professionals, the best way to flourish is to retain an amateur’s spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown.
If you ask yourself ‘What’s the best thing that happened today?’ It actually forces a certain kind of cheerful retrospection that pulls up from the recent past things to write about that you wouldn’t otherwise think about.
The only way to find your voice is to use it. It’s hardwired, built into you. Talk about the things you love. Your voice will follow.
You can’t be content with mastery; you have to push yourself to become a student again.
Don’t worry about doing research. Just search.
Not everybody will get it. People will misinterpret you and what you do. They might even call you names. So get comfortable with being misunderstood, disparaged, or ignored – the trick is to be too busy doing your work to care.
Be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else – that’s how you’ll get ahead.
Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.
Usually, when we talk about creativity, it’s about self-expression, which is great, but for work to be art or design, there has to be someone on the other end. The audience makes the work come alive.