Wise Words

 

Thoughts on Creativity from artists born January 31:

from Austrian composer Franz Schubert (Symphony No. 9 in C Major [The Great], Symphony in B Minor [Unfinished]), Fantasy in F Minor, Die Winterreise) (1797-1828):

The greatest misfortune of the wise man and the greatest unhappiness of the fool are based upon convention.

No one understands another's grief, no one understands another's joy... My music is the product of my talent and my misery. And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like best.

There are two contrary impulses which govern this man's brain—the one sane, and the other eccentric. They alternate at regular intervals.

I never force myself to be devout except when I feel so inspired, and never compose hymns of prayers unless I feel within me real and true devotion.

--

from American sagebrush writer Zane Grey (Riders of the Purple Sage, The Lone Star Ranger, Nevada, Western Union, Valley of Wild Horses) (1872-1939):

Every once in a while I feel the tremendous force of the novel. But it does not stay with me.

I can write best in the silence and solitude of the night, when everyone has retired.

I confess that reading proofs is a pleasure. It stimulates and inspires me.

The Indian story has never been written. Maybe I am the man to do it.

What is writing but an expression of my own life?

The difficulty, the ordeal, is to start.

I wrote for nearly six hours. When I stopped, the dark mood, as if by magic, had folded its cloak and gone away.

No one connected intimately with a writer has any appreciation of his temperament, except to think him overdoing everything.

Work is my salvation. It changes my moods.

These critics who crucify me do not guess the littlest part of my sincerity. They must be burned in a blaze. I cannot learn from them.

I love my work but do not know how I write it.

Writing was like digging coal. I sweat blood. The spell is on me.

Today I began the novel that I determined to be great.

--

from American author John O’Hara (Appointment in Samarra, Ten North Frederick, Butterfield 8, From the Terrace) (1905-1970):

Becoming the reader is the essence of becoming a writer.

Hot lead can be almost as effective coming from a linotype as from a firearm.

They say great themes make great novels. but what these young writers don't understand is that there is no greater theme than men and women.

Much as I like owning a Rolls-Royce, I could do without it. What I could not do without is a typewriter, a supply of yellow second sheets and the time to put them to good use.

An artist is his own fault.

--

from American Tony-winning actor-singer-dancer Carol Channing (Hello Dolly!, special Tony, Lifetime Achievement) (1921-2019):

Regret leads to negativity, and negativity kills creativity.

--

from American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Norman Mailer (The Armies of the Night, The Executioner’s Song); also known for The Naked and the Dead (1923-2007):

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

When I read it, I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

It's not a good idea to put your wife into a novel; not your latest wife anyway.

The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.

Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.

The writer can grow as a person or he can shrink. ... His curiosity, his reaction to life must not diminish. The fatal thing is to shrink, to be interested in less, sympathetic to less, desiccating to the point where life itself loses its flavor, and one’s passion for human understanding changes to weariness and distaste.

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

Every one of my books had killed me a little more.

--

from Scottish comic book writer and playwright Grant Morrison MBE (Batman, All-Star Superman, New X-Men, Depravity) (b. 1960):

Adults...struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it's not real.

Writers and artists build by hand little worlds that they hope might effect change in real minds, in the real world where stories are read. A story can make us cry and laugh, break our hearts, or make us angry enough to change the world.

There are dozens of unfinished or aborted projects in my files, but I can only assume they don't get done because they're not robust enough to struggle through the birth process.

Burnout is grist to the mill. I write every day, for most of the day, so it's just about turning into metaphor whatever's going on in my life, in the world, and in my head. Every nightmare, every moment of grief or joy or failure, is a moment I can convert into cash via words.

Sometimes you wonder, in an interconnected universe, who's dreaming who?

Sometimes it’s only madness that makes us what we are.