Best 109 quotes of Eric Maisel on MyQuotes

Abstraction is itself an abstract word and has no single meaning ... Every word in our language is abstract, because it represents something else.

A composition is an arrangement, built out of parts, that aims at seamlessness.

A creative block is a fear about the future, a guess about the dangers dwelling in the dark computer and the locked studio.

Affirmations need to be used if they are to become incorporated into the fabric of your being.

Affirmations are not bound up in rules. An affirmation can be long or short, poetic or plain. If you love a phrase and find that it helps you, that is a valid affirmation.

A key to a long, productive writing life is finding ways to support that life, emotionally and existentially.

Almost nothing beautiful or brilliant happens unless a person has thought about it a lot.

A long, deep breath is the equivalent of a full stop and the key to centering.

Ambition is vital, but dangerous: it is a keen motive and a driving force, but over what edge can it drive the artist?

An ability to choose is a necessity for the artist.

An alive piece of art may be more alive than much of its audience, and with this odd truth artists must make peace.

An artist feels vulnerable to begin with; and yet the only answer is to recklessly discard more armour.

An artist... must actively caress wonder: for fascination, like the desire to play, can be eradicated by the rigors of living.

An artist must struggle to accept the shape of this universe - and achieve some important successes.

An artist's fine goal is to manifest a well-nigh heroic self-discipline, carefully attending to all that concerns him.

An artist who is too self-centered is liable to exhibit faults he abhors: carelessness, callousness, and even downright cruelty.

An inability to choose is a hallmark of anxiety... The too-anxious artist, afraid to choose, will halt dead in the water.

Art and business may be strange bedfellows, but an artist must make room in her bed for both.

Art is manipulation, the management of material, the directing of fate... Who does that directing?

Artists are often poignantly careless about making and keeping friends.

Artists have wild desires and a terrible hunger to achieve... Without it they haven't the juice for striving or loving. But desire also can make them greedy and turn dreams into unrealizable obsessions.

Artists know failure. It is not tragic that they know failure; it is only tragic if they know failure and little else.

As the artist matures she is continuously shaken by what she manages to discover: by the earth shifting beneath her feet once again, by her own amazed, ringing laughter.

A time comes, after years in the trenches, when the artist begins to fathom what his career has looked like so far and what it will look like if he continues as he's proceeded.

A wild person with a calm mind can make anything.

Because she favours solitude and indwelling, an artist can live a significantly more claustrophobic life that she had ever intended.

Boredom is the thing that regularly arrives between excitements and episodes of meaning: it is as natural as the tides, and in it an artist can drown.

By 'expecting nothing' you are not 'giving up.' Far from it! You are making a decision to focus on what needs to be done rather than on outcomes.

Chaos is everywhere - and artists, to fashion art and live truthfully, have no choice but to invite this unwanted guest right into the studio.

Creativity is part sweat - not just beads of it, but sometimes buckets.

Creativity is the gift that keeps on giving.

Creativity is the marriage humanity makes with eternity.

Creativity requires introspection, self-examination, and a willingness to take risks. Because of this, artists are perhaps more susceptible to self-doubt and despair than those who do not court the creative muses.

Deconstruction is great for the intellect, but it hurts the heart terribly.

Do I doubt the painting I've just painted because it is not right or because I can never like what I do?

Dream, but expect nothing. Desire, but expect nothing. Hope, but expect nothing. Release your need to control and gain real control.

Even though we require flexibility to negotiate our changing circumstances, we are rather built to anxiously turn away from alternatives.

Go directly to work' means... when an idea strikes, you drop everything and when your work bell tolls, you answer it.

Humanitarian convictions are the linchpins of our salvation, and these an artist must champion.

Hurray for criticism, if it means that an artist's voice is heard. Let the wise artist invite criticism and survive it when it comes.

I am a human being and an artist: I really, simply, surely am.

I am one powerful self made up of so many selves that sometimes I throw myself a get-acquainted party.

If, because of anxiety and self-doubt, you procrastinate and only think about working, you'll feel more exhausted than if you'd created for hours.

If we had the consciousness of a cat or a dog, we would have it in us to become perfect Zen masters. We could gnaw on a bone, take a nap, play with a spider until we killed it, get our litter just right, and be innocently and serenely present. Meaning would mean nothing to us, nor would we need it to mean anything. We would be free, and we would be spared. But, we are human beings, and we posses that odd duck – human consciousness.

If you bring your sexual impulses to your creative work... you'll be working from deep in the genetic code, down where life wants to make new life and feel good in the process.

If you create you will also wait, and while you're waiting you will want to be patient but not idle... responses from the world often take a long time.

Isn't today a day to devote to craft? Isn't tomorrow? Isn't every day, routinely, until the end of time?

It goes against an artist's grain to retire. But whether he retires or not, he will age... What work will get done in the remaining time? ...Can he find a little peace in this twilight? Or must he still rush on, restlessly and hungrily, to the very end?

It is in an artist's real interest to congratulate herself more often: not out of narcissism, but in her role as her own dear friend and advocate.

It is the artist's job to revere beauty without being enchanted by it, to aim for it but also to aim for truth and goodness - just in case they, and not beauty, are the real things of value.