I think a creative life is the most marvelous life there is.
After all, he says, “beauty attracts beauty.
Through the mere act of creating something – anything – you might inadvertently produce work that is magnificent, eternal, or important.
I do not know of any creative soul who does not dream of calm, cool, grass-growing days in which to work without interruption.
Everybody imitates before they can innovate.
A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life.
For the entirety of my young and skittish life, I had fixated upon my fear as if it were the most interesting thing about me, when actually it was the most mundane.
Trust me, if you want to complain, you’ll always find plenty to complain about, even when fortune appears to be shining her favor upon you.
Ever try to take a toy away from a toddler? They don’t like that, do they? They start kicking and screaming. Best way to take a toy away from a toddler is distract the kid, give him something else to play with. Divert his attention. Instead of trying to forcefully take thoughts out of your mind, give your mind something better to play with. Something healthier.” “Like what?” “Like love, Groceries. Like pure divine love.
Creativity is a path for the brave, yes, but it is not a path for the fearless, and it’s important to recognize the distinction.
I tried to look like someone who was busy expanding her horizons and building her character through intentional fraternization with her social inferiors. A difficult look to master in a single facial expression, but I did my best.
Lucky is the soul whose only troubles are self-inflicted.
We were too distracted by our own story to pay much attention to all the wonders that were laid before us.
There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Who’s in charge?
He came bearing not a sword but a candle.
I saw the apartment almost as a sanatorium, a hospice clinic for my own recovery. I painted the walls in the warmest colors I could find and bought myself flowers every week, as if I were visiting myself in the hospital.
Aside from my cockeyed internal compass, I also have a shortage of personal coolness, which can be a liability in travel. I have never learned how to arrange my face into that blank expression of competent invisibility that is so useful when traveling in dangerous, foreign places. You know – that super-relaxed, totally-in-charge expression which makes you look like you belong there, anywhere, everywhere, even in the middle of riot in Jakarta.
Einstein called this tactic “combinatory play” – the act of opening up one mental channel by dabbling in another.
I’m aware that many things were not better in the 1940s. Underarm deodorants and air-conditioning were woefully inadequate, for instance, so everybody stank like crazy, especially in the summer, and also we had Hitler.
Everything reminds us of something. But once you put your own expression and passion behind an idea, that idea becomes yours.