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art 1 |ɑːt|
noun
1 the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power : the art of the Renaissance | great art is concerned with moral imperfections | she studied art in Paris.
• works produced by such skill and imagination : his collection of modern art | an exhibition of Tibetan art | [as adj. ] an art critic.
• creative activity resulting in the production of paintings, drawings, or sculpture : she's good at art.
2 ( the arts) the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance : the visual arts | [in sing. ] the art of photography.
3 ( arts) subjects of study primarily concerned with the processes and products of human creativity and social life, such as languages, literature, and history (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects) : the belief that the arts and sciences were incompatible | the Faculty of Arts.
4 a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice : the art of conversation.

On Art:

“The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” ~Auguste Rodin

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” ~John W. Gardner

“The earth has music for those who listen.” ~William Shakespeare

“Art is not a thing, it is a way.” ~Elbert Hubbard

“Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul — and you answer.” ~Terri Guillemets

“Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.” ~Bruce Lee

“I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.” ~Robert Henri

“We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.” ~Albert Einstein

“Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.” ~Jean-Luc Godard

‎”When it is working, you completely go into another place, you’re tapping into things that are totally universal, completely beyond your ego and your own self. That’s what it’s all about.” ~Keith Haring

“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” ~Robert Henri

‎”Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.” ~Steven Pressfield

“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.” ~Andre Gide

“Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.” ~Magdalena Abakanowicz

“As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight.” ~James McNeil Whistler

“A piece of art is never a finished work. It answers a question which has been asked, and asks a new question.” ~Robert Engman

“The reason that art (writing, engaging, and all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map.” ~Seth Godin

“As my artist’s statement explains, my work is utterly incomprehensible and is therefore full of deep significance” ~Calvin and Hobbes

“Great art picks up where nature ends.” ~Marc Chagall

“Sex is like art. Most of it is pretty bad, and the good stuff is out of your price range.” ~Scott Roeben

“Personality is everything in art and poetry.” ~Goethe

“No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time, it’s just that others are behind the times.” ~ Martha Graham

“I will be an artist or nothing!” ~Eugene O’Neill

“Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.” ~G.K. Chesterton

“The greatest respect an artist can pay to music is to give it life.” ~Pablo Casals

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” ~ Edgar Degas

“Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it.” ~Samuel Butler

“Art is literacy of the heart” ~Elliot Eisner

.
On Beauty. . .

“Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing.” ~Marc Chagall

“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” ~Rumi

“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~A.A. Milne

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” ~Elizabeth Kubler Ross

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” ~Henry Ward Beecher

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but must be felt with the heart.” ~Helen Keller

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” ~Albert Einstein

“Beauty is the illumination of your soul.” ~John O’Donohue

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” ~Thornton Wilder

“The only journey is the one within.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

“All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien

“Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers.” ~Robert Henri

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart…” ~William Wordsworth

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” ~Francis Bacon

“To be an artist is to believe in life.” ~ Henry Moore

“Are we to paint what’s on the face, what’s inside the face, or what’s behind it?” ~Picasso

“The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” ~Paul Cezanne

.


On Character. . .

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.” ~Andre Gide

“The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. ~Gloria Steinem

“Whatever you are, be a good one.” ~Abraham Lincoln

‎”Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we’ll find it.” ~Sam Levenson

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” ~William Shakespeare

“You connect yourself to the viewer by sharing something that is inside of you that connects with something inside of him. All you have as your guide is that you know what moves you.” ~Steven Brust

‎”At some point everyone must decide if they are a creator or a critic, a lover or a hater, a giver or a taker.” ~Author Unknown

“Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.” ~Blaise Pascal

“The trouble with having an open mind, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.” ~Terry Pratchett

We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” ~John Lennon

“Promise me you’ll always remember: you’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” ~Christopher Robin (to Pooh)

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~Gandhi

“I think I am, therefore, I am. I think…” ~George Carlin

“Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.” ~e.e. cummings

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” ~Guillaume Apollinaire

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you too can become great.” ~Mark Twain

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” ~Winston Churchill

“Be silent, or say something better than silence.” ~Pythagoras

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.” ~Stephen King (Different Seasons)

“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.” ~Vincent van Gogh

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” ~Plato

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.”
~Mother Teresa

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.” ~Arthur Schopenhauer

“I am not here to change the world. I am changing the world because I am here.” ~Lisa Wilson

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.” ~Emerson

.
On Conformity. . .

“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself” ~Rita Mae Brown

“The things that make me different are the things that make me.” ~A. A. Milne

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” ~Steve Jobs

“Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.” ~André Gide

“Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.” ~Barbara Kingsolver

“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance” ~Unknown

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” ~Steve Jobs

“It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.” ~André Gide

“There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain, telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.” ~Hindu proverb

“Poor is the soul whose pleasure depends upon the permission of another” ~Madonna

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” ~Oscar Wilde

“To create one’s own world takes courage.” ~Georgia O’Keeffe

‎”There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
‘I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.’
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What’s right for you–just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.” ~Shel Silverstein

“The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be.” ~Leo Buscaglia

‎”We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.” ~Dr. Seuss

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~Emerson

“Resist much. Obey little.” ~Walt Whitman

‎”If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” ~Joseph Campbell

If you can’t beat them, join them. If you can’t join them, it’s probably because you just tried to beat them. ~Unknown

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” ~Robert Frost

“A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.” ~Kenneth Tynan

“To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.” ~Bono

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.” ~Jack Kerouac

“Do not compromise yourself. You are all you have got.” ~Janis Joplin

”Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

“If it adapts itself to what the majority of our society wants, art will be a meaningless recreation.” ~Albert Camus

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” ~Kurt Cobain

.
On Creativity. . .

“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.” ~Anne Sexton

“Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea.” ~Lou Dorfsman

“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” ~Pablo Picasso

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~G.B. Shaw

“Everything’s already been said, but since nobody was listening, we have to start again.” ~Andre Gide

“Creativity takes courage.” ~Henri Matisse

“I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.” ~Terry Pratchett

“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.” ~Annie Dillard

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” ~Albert Einstein

“I invent nothing, I rediscover.” ~Auguste Rodin

“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” ~Marc Chagall

“Do not be satisfied with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth.” ~Rumi

“Find something only you can say” ~James Dickey

“Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.” ~James Russell Lowell

“Free your mind and your ass will follow” ~George Clinton

“Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite–getting something down.” ~Julia Cameron

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” ~Scott Adams

.
On Experience. . .

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” ~Jung

“Everything that we encounter leaves traces behind. Everything contributes imperceptibly to our education” ~Goethe

“The lessons you are meant to learn are in your work. To see them, you need only look at the work clearly — without judgment, without need or fear, without wishes or hopes. Without emotional expectations. Ask your work what it needs, not what you need. Then set aside your fears and listen, the way a good parent listens to a child” ~David Bayles

“Everything in life comes to you as a teacher. Pay Attention. Learn Quickly.” ~Cherokee saying

“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is life, fight for it.”
~Mother Teresa

“You may not be a Picasso or Mozart but you don’t have to be. Just create to create. Create to remind yourself you’re still alive. Make stuff to inspire others to make something too. Create to learn a bit more about yourself.” ~Frederick Terral

“We are not on this earth to accumulate victories, things, and experiences, but to be whittled and sandpapered until what’s left is who we truly are.” ~Arianna Huffington

“The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication.” ~Cyril Connolly

“Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, or evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.” ~Henry Miller

”The seed of your next artwork lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece.” ~David Bayles

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.” ~Jimi Hendrix

.
On Failure . . .

”It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and then we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.” ~Wendell Berry

“It’s better to fail in originality, than succeed in imitation.” ~Herman Melville

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” ~Augusten Burroughs

“Some succeed because they are destined. Some succeed because they are determined.” ~Unknown

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” ~Lao Tzu

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” ~Douglas Adams

“Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.” ~Norman Vincent Peale

“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” ~Vincent van Gogh

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” ~Georgia O’Keeffe

“Do not fear mistakes—there are none.” ~Miles Davis

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~Khalil Gibran

“You should keep on painting no matter how difficult it is, because this is all part of experience, and the more experience you have, the better it is…unless it kills you, and then you know you have gone too far.” ~ Alice Neel

“Fail, fail again, fail better” ~Samuel Beckett

.
On Faith. . .

“When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen….There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly.” ~Patrick Overton

“Destiny is a feeling you have that you know something about yourself nobody else does. The picture you have in your own mind of what you’re about will come true.” ~Bob Dylan

“The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not grasp” ~John Berry

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.” ~William Shakespeare

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” ~Kurt Vonnegut

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” ~Ira Glass

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment” ~Rumi

“Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.” ~E.M. Forster

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned in order to have the life that is waiting for us.” ~Joseph Campbell

“Only those that risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” ~T.S. Eliot

“Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful” ~ John Wooden

“I have great faith in fools — my friends call it self-confidence.” ~Edgar Allan Poe

“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. We are all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up to discover what is already there.” ~Henry Miller

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself.” ~Soren Kierkegaard

.
On Fear & Doubt. . .

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” ~Shel Silverstein

‎”Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” ~William Shakespeare

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” ~Joseph Chilton Pearce

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~Joseph Campbell

“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single think that I wanted to do.” ~Georgia O’Keeffe

“Do not be troubled for a language, cultivate your soul and she will show herself.” ~Eugene Delacroix

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” ~e.e. cummings

“You are not too old and it is not too late to dive into your depths where life calmly gives out it’s own secret” ~Rilke

“It’s not denial. I’m just selective about the reality I accept.” ~Calvin and Hobbes

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ~Nelson Mandela

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” ~Goethe

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ~Sylvia Plath

.
On Giving. . .

“One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others” ~Lewis Carroll

“Give what you have. To someone else it may be better than you dare to think” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~Buddha

“No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted” ~Aesop

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. ” ~Albert Schweitzer

“The way to happiness: Keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Scatter sunshine, forget yourself, and think of others.” ~Norman Vincent Peale

“To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.” ~Jasper Johns

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” ~Herman Melville

“When you learn, teach, when you get, give.” ~Maya Angelou

“Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making.” ~Jose Marti

“He neither serves nor rules, he transmits. His position is humble and the beauty at the crown is not his own. He is merely a channel” ~Paul Klee

“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.” ~Jack Kerouac

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On Imagination. . .

“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” ~Thoreau

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” ~Henri Matisse

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web. ” ~Pablo Picasso

“Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.” ~Philip K. Dick

“I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed!” ~William Shakespeare

“I shut my eyes in order to see.” ~Paul Gauguin

“To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.” ~Anatole France

“You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” ~Kafka

“Silence is the mother of truth” ~Benjamin Disraeli

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~Thoreau

“No artist tolerates reality.” ~Nietzsche

“Who looks outside, dreams… who looks inside, awakes.” ~Carl Jung

“Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a f**king sharp knife to it.” ~Banksy

“Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads” ~Erica Jong

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On Madness. . .

“We work in the dark, we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.” ~Henry James

“Those who danced were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” ~Nietzsche

“Being crazy isn’t enough.” ~Dr. Seuss

“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” ~Allen Ginsberg

“The only difference between an artist and a lunatic is, perhaps, that the artist has the restraint or courtesy to conceal the intensity of his obsession from all except those similarly afflicted.” ~Osbert Sitwell

“When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There’s a thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the biggest idiot on earth” ~Cynthia Heimel

“Not everyone is capable of madness; and of those lucky enough to be capable, not many have the courage for it.” ~August Strindberg

“The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy, only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.” ~Willa Cather

“One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” ~George Orwell

“Being an author is having angels whisper in your ear – and devils, too.” ~Graycie Harmon

‎”Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.” ~Meg Chittenden

“What I give form to in daylight is only one per cent of what I have seen in darkness.” ~M.C. Escher

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On Work. . .

“Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave.” ~Constantin Brancusi

“You can’t wait for inspiration. Sometimes you have to go after it with a club.” ~ Jack London

“I’m killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.” ~Calvin & Hobbes

“Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.” ~Jerome K. Jerome

“I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work” ~Pearl S. Buck

“Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life.” ~Irving Stone

“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.” ~Vincent van Gogh

“To see far is one thing, going there is another.” ~Constantin Brancusi

“Failure is the path of least persistence” ~Author unknown

“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” ~Salvador Dali

“Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.” ~Benjamin Jowett

.
On Writing. . .

“You ask me why I spend my life writing? Do I find entertainment? Is it worthwhile? Above all, does it pay? If not, then, is there a reason?… I write only because there is a voice within me. That will not be still.” ~Sylvia Plath

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” ~Madeleine L’Engle

“We do not write as we want, but as we can.” ~W. Somerset Maugham

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.” ~Annie Dillard

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” ~Thoreau

“The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don’t dare reveal.” ~Elia Kazan

“It’s much more important to write than to be written about.” ~Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” ~Dr. Seuss

“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word.” ~Stephen King

“True storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.” ~Hannah Arendt

“I never think when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well” ~Don Marquis

“A little talent is good to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.” ~Stephen King

“Writing is a struggle against silence.” ~Carlos Fuentes

“Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.” ~Goethe

“A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.” ~Karl Kraus

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” ~Stephen King

“Words are things. A small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think” ~Byron