It’s vital to establish some rituals-automatic but decisive patterns of behavior-at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.
Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art.
I’m not one who divides music, dance or art into various categories. Either something works, or it doesn’t.
Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it.
I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.
Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity. Self-reliance is a happy by-product.
Whether it’s a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory, the routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.
Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them.
I’ve always thought my creative life began the moment my mother called me Twyla.
In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative.
When it all comes together, a creative life has the nourishing power we normally associate with food, love and faith.
Everyone has a talent. It’s simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck.
There is obviously a power and a truth in action that doesn’t lie, which words easily can do.
The disasteris not the money, although the money will be missed. The disaster is the disrespect – this belief that the arts are dispensable, that they’re not critical to a culture’s existence.
There’s an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.
The blank space can be humbling. But I’ve faced it my whole professional life. It’s my job. It’s also my calling. Bottom line: Filling this empty space constitutes my identity.
Perfect practice makes perfect.
You double your intensity with skill.
I began ear training when I was about six months old. My mother was a concert pianist, and she started all of her children with music before they were a year old. Then she began to see that I had a musical gift.
I don’t believe in rushing and saying this is done and over with. That form of rebellion doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve always attempted to familiarize myself with the traditions, and consider that a responsibility of the artist.