Five Top Quotes about Creativity & Writing to Motivate and Inspire

Time and again, we all need inspiring words to help us to write or simply live creatively, without fear or inhibitions.

Stick one or more of these quotes above your desk, keep them in your bag, write them in the sand. Or just read them as often as you can, let their wisdom seep into you and BELIEVE.

People working in the arts engage in street combat with The Fraud Police on a daily basis, because much of our work is new and not readily or conventionally categorised. When you’re an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it. There’s no ‘correct path’ to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to university, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.

Amanda Palmer

Writing, when all is said and done, is an attempt to understand one’s own circumstances and to clarify the confusion of existence.

Isabel Allende

There is no such thing as a writer without influence. Those influences are very important; they help you define yourself, with them and against them. As you write more, the influences fall off.

Salman Rushdie

The mariner sails the sea because he longs to, because it is a challenge he needs, because each time he is testing himself, exploring, discovering. I write for the same reason.

Michael Morpugo

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

All of the above quotes need nothing adding to them. In their own ways, they all resonate strongly with me and help to validate why I do what I do.

What are your favourite creativity + writing quotes?

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