Creativity quotes

Welcome to our Creativity collection, a tribute to the boundless realm of imagination, originality, and the transformative power of embracing creativity as a means of self-expression and problem-solving. In this curated compilation of quotes, we explore the world of creativity, celebrating its ability to inspire innovation, ignite passion, and redefine the way we perceive art, ideas, and the human spirit.

Creativity is more than a concept; it's a wellspring of inspiration, a force that propels us to think beyond boundaries, and a source of empowerment that unleashes the unique potential within each of us. Our Creativity quotes honor the wisdom of those who've embraced the power of imaginative thinking, the insight that arises from understanding the transformative influence of creative expression, and the way creativity empowers us to transform challenges into opportunities and embrace the beauty of originality.

Whether you're captivated by the stories of individuals who've embraced creativity as a way of life, intrigued by the psychology of innovative thinking and artistic expression, or simply drawn to the narratives of individuals who've found empowerment through their creative pursuits, these quotes offer insights into the strategies, attitudes, and practices that nurture and celebrate creativity.

Embark on a journey that celebrates the stories of individuals who've embraced creativity as a boundless journey of self-expression, the wisdom drawn from understanding that true beauty lies in the power of human imagination, and the inspiration to infuse your own life with a sense of creativity that resonates with your values and aspirations. Discover the narratives of those who've found empowerment through creative expression, the secrets to cultivating a mindset of imaginative thinking, and the empowering realization that creativity is the key to unlocking your inner artist, innovator, and problem-solver.

Though I am never exactly "blocked" I do have difficult periods. I am led by a fascination with material - the challenge of presenting it in an original and engaging way. I have no problem imagining stories, characters, distinctive settings & themes - but the difficulty is choosing a voice & a language in which to present it.
All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.
Jim Grimsley
Jim Grimsley
Novelist
For me, writing plays is far more an act of the mind than of the emotions. It's a very different kind of impulse than fiction writing.
In order to write poetry, you must first invent a poet who will write it.
I work with whatever mediums seems best suited to evoking the sorts of thoughts and emotions I am interested in playing with.
E. B. White
E. B. White
Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved Classics
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David
Neoclassical Master & Political Artist
To give a body and a perfect form to one's thought, this - and only this - is to be an artist.
Diana Krall
Diana Krall
Acclaimed Jazz Vocalist & Pianist
The greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out.
Russell Hoban
Russell Hoban
Versatile Author & Creative Storyteller
Usually my starting point is something that I've seen. It might be a painting, it might be an object. But they always start from a definite sensory experience.
D.T. Suzuki
D.T. Suzuki
Pioneer of Zen Buddhism in the West
Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking.
Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Comic Book Icon & Creator of Marvel Heroes
Comics are stories; they're like novels or anything else. So the first thing you have to do is become a good storyteller.
Peter Deunov
Peter Deunov
Spiritual Teacher & Philosopher
If you do not fling old ideas out of your mind, you cannot give birth to new ones.
Harvey Mackay
Harvey Mackay
Business Guru & Motivational Speaker
Don't equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don't let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you'd like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea.
Len Wiseman
Len Wiseman
Talented Filmmaker of "Underworld"
A lot of these movies are informed by the movies that come before them.
M. F. K. Fisher
M. F. K. Fisher
Pioneering Food Writer
I wrote from the time I was four. It was my way of screaming and yelling, the primal scream. I wrote like a junkie, I had to have my daily fix.
Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
American psychologist and author
You are a powerful, unlimited and eternal soul who is here to enjoy the experience of creativity and contribute to humanity's evolution.
Quinn Shephard
Quinn Shephard
American actress, film director, producer, screenwriter and film editor
I'd like mostly stuff for design, because I like to design clothing.
Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris
American actor, singer, writer, producer, and television host
If I wrote a musical it wouldn't be about me. Although I do some magic, so it would probably be about a magician who appeared and re-appeared all over the place.
Ed McBain
Ed McBain
American author and screenwriter
I never take ideas from the headlines. I feel that if a story is good enough, a real story that is, then it's already been covered by the media, and if it's not good enough, why would I want to bother with it?
Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
American actor, comedian, producer, and writer
Anyone who does anything creative is always gonna want to change.
Joseph Kosuth
Joseph Kosuth
American conceptual artist
Forget your ideas about art. Make a shopping list of everything you like about what you've done. Include qualities that you've seen in your life, in the world, and possibly in art that you like. Take this list and make a work that satisfies all of the things on your list without caring if it looks like art.
Witney Carson
Witney Carson
American professional Latin ballroom dancer and choreographer
If I hear an amazing piece of music, I can't help but think of ideas, choreography, and everything that comes along with it.
Gerald Finzi
Gerald Finzi
British composer
But no work from a first rate mind is ever really second rate.
Eli Roth
Eli Roth
American film director, producer, and actor
You can't help but be influenced by the things you love. Read more at: https://tr.im/ezGbq
Glennon Melton
Glennon Melton
American author and activist
If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or sing, please refuse to worry about whether you're good enough . Just do it. Be generous. Offer a gift to the world no one else can offer : yourself.
Abdolkarim Soroush
Abdolkarim Soroush
Iranian Philosopher
When I have an idea, I'm like a pregnant woman. I just have to deliver.
Alison Gopnik
Alison Gopnik
American Psychologist
What we want in students is creativity and a willingness to fail. I always say to students, 'If you've never at some point stayed up all night talking to your new boyfriend about the meaning of life instead of preparing for the test, then you're not really an intellectual.'
Adam Grant
Adam Grant
American Author
When trying to innovate, most people stop after 10-15 possibilities, failing to recognize that their first ideas are usually the most obvious ones.
Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent
French fashion designer
I prefer to shock rather than to bore through repetition.
Writing allows for fictitious voices - the voices of persons unlike myself - that might otherwise be muted.
Creativity is suspended between memory and forgetting.
I don't want the ideas to be limited by what I can physically do. The ideas come first.
E. B. White
E. B. White
Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved Classics
Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.
Diana Krall
Diana Krall
Acclaimed Jazz Vocalist & Pianist
So much of what we do as artists is a combination of personal experience and imagination, and how that all creeps into your work is not so linear.
D.T. Suzuki
D.T. Suzuki
Pioneer of Zen Buddhism in the West
Technical knowledge is not enough. One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.
Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Comic Book Icon & Creator of Marvel Heroes
MARVEL IS A CORNUCOPIA OF FANTASY, A WILD IDEA , A SWASHBUCKLING ATTITUDE , AN ESCAPE FROM THE HUMDRUM AND PROSAIC. IT'S A SERENDIPITOUS FEAST FOR THE MIND, THE EYE , AND THE IMAGINATION, A LITERATE CELEBRATION OF UNBRIDLED CREATIVITY, COUPLED WITH A TOUCH OF REBELLION AND AN INSOLENT DESIRE TO SPIT IN THE EYE OF THE DRAGON.
Harvey Mackay
Harvey Mackay
Business Guru & Motivational Speaker
One sure-fire way to stay creative: force yourself to learn something new.
Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
American psychologist and author
The aim of human life is to know thyself. Think for yourself. Question authority. Think with your friends. Create, create new realities. Philosophy is a team sport. Philosophy is the ultimate, the ultimate aphrodisiac pleasure. Learning how to operate your brain, learning how to operate your mind, learning how to redesign chaos
Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris
American actor, singer, writer, producer, and television host
When you call someone and ask them to do something they've never done before, in different mediums I think they would be inclined to pass because they're afraid of the risk. But the creative people who populate the theater world love the challenge of new things.
Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
American actor, comedian, producer, and writer
I'm able to come and do a new sound and grow even more and make greater songs because my song-making abilities have grown.
Joseph Kosuth
Joseph Kosuth
American conceptual artist
Making something new to look at is a futile and empty act if its only audience is the eyes.
Eli Roth
Eli Roth
American film director, producer, and actor
I have so many different projects, I hear voices in my head - the characters talking all at once - and I have to write to make them stop.
'A Fair Maiden' existed in notes and sketches for perhaps a year. When I traveled, I would take along with me my folder of notes - 'ideas for stories.' Eventually, I began to write it and wrote it fairly swiftly - in perhaps two months of fairly intense writing and rewriting. Most of my time writing is really re-writing.
A . . . poet is a discoverer rather than an inventor.
I would say my work is anti-ironic.
E. B. White
E. B. White
Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved Classics
I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.
Diana Krall
Diana Krall
Acclaimed Jazz Vocalist & Pianist
I always wonder what drives us as Artists.
D.T. Suzuki
D.T. Suzuki
Pioneer of Zen Buddhism in the West
Art always has something of the unconscious about it.
Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Comic Book Icon & Creator of Marvel Heroes
I think people have always loved things that are bigger than life, things that are imaginative.
Harvey Mackay
Harvey Mackay
Business Guru & Motivational Speaker
We start out as pretty creative beings... Children let their imaginations take them to place they've never seen and do things that seem impossible. We encourage it as fun and playtime, but we should celebrate it as the potential for great discovery and accomplishment.
Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
American psychologist and author
In the information-communication civilization of the 21st Century, creativity and mental excellence will become the ethical norm. The world will be too dynamic, complex, and diversified, too cross-linked by the global immediacies of modern (quantum) communication, for stability of thought or dependability of behaviour to be successful.
Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
American actor, comedian, producer, and writer
I'm really an artist of feeling. I like creating things when it feels right.
Eli Roth
Eli Roth
American film director, producer, and actor
I can think of endless horrible things to do to people!
Stories come to us as wraiths requiring precise embodiments.
No one is a poet from eight to twelve and from two to six. Whoever is a poet is one always, and continually assaulted by poetry.
I don't set out to make something that is repulsive and that would scare people. I know that some people don't like what I make, and don't find it cute, but that's hard for me to understand.
E. B. White
E. B. White
Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved Classics
A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. ... A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy: true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Comic Book Icon & Creator of Marvel Heroes
If Shakespeare and Michelangelo were alive today, and if they decided to collaborate on a comic, Shakespeare would write the script and Michelangelo would draw it. How could anybody say that this wouldn't be as worthwhile an artform as anything on earth?
Harvey Mackay
Harvey Mackay
Business Guru & Motivational Speaker
You can't hurry creativity, so take time to ponder your ideas. Sit back and take time to think things over. That's usually how the best ideas bloom.
Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
American psychologist and author
When you teach someone how to perform creatively (ie, associate dead symbols in new combinations), you expand his potential for experiencing more widely and richly.
Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
American actor, comedian, producer, and writer
I think anyone who has, you know, is in any sort of artistic pursuit, kind of goes up and down with the way they feel about their work. And I, for the most part, am pretty happy person. But, yeah. I go through definite periods of time where I'm not funny. I'm not good. I'm - I don't feel original.
Eli Roth
Eli Roth
American film director, producer, and actor
I'd love to see us get to a point where you can make a movie and not worry about the limits of the violence. Then I think they'd get so violent that people would get bored of it.
Writing is the most solitary of arts.
Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.
If there are moments in my work when people find joy and humour, that's a real success for me.
E. B. White
E. B. White
Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved Classics
Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Comic Book Icon & Creator of Marvel Heroes
To me, writing is fun. It doesn't matter what you're writing, as long as you can tell a story.
Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
American actor, comedian, producer, and writer
I think whatever an artist does, it just has to be quality and good. I think the way Kanye's doing what he's doing with the Auto-Tune is actually creative because he just writes good melodies. He just writes good songs. He's just gifted.
The great happiness in life in creativity belongs to amateurs.
Censorship is the mother of metaphor.
Materials are very important to me, and always have been.
E. B. White
E. B. White
Versatile Writer & Author of Beloved Classics
Write about it by day and dream about it by night.
Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Comic Book Icon & Creator of Marvel Heroes
I always figure I'm not unique, and something that would please me hopefully would please a lot of other people that have the same tastes that I do.
Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell
American actor, comedian, producer, and writer
You want every movie to be a hit. But every painting isn’t a masterpiece.
Ideas brush past fleeting and insubstantial as moths. But I let them go, I don't want them. What I want is a voice.