"if they give you ruled paper, write the other way." -JRJM
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
I’ve never read Kafka, but this is so spot on:
You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind… That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough
-Kafka, qtd. in Quiet, Susan Cain.
<3
If you’re an introvert, you also know that the bias against quiet can cause deep psychic pain. As a child you might have overheard your parents apologize for your shyness… Or at school you might have been prodded to come “out of your shell” — that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and that some humans are just the same.
…
Now that you’re an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book….Or you’re told that you’re “in your head too much,” a phrase that’s often deployed against the quiet and cerebral.
Of course, there’s another word for such people: thinkers.
Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking - Susan Cain
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work
Gustave Flaubert
The best way to get approval is to not need it
Hugh MacLeod
Take time to be bored. One time I heard a coworker say, ‘When I get busy, I get stupid.’ Ain’t that the truth. Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing. I get some of my best ideas when I’m bored…If you’re out of ideas, wash the dishes. Take a really long walk…. As the artist Maira Kalman says, ‘Avoiding work is the way to focus my mind.’
Take time to mess around. Get lost. Wander. You never know where it’s going to lead you
Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist
You get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.
Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides (via gildings)
is its weird that from one quote, I have the biggest urge to read this book?
We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.
John Cleese
It’s better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.
Mark Twain
Always be reading. Go to the library. There’s magic in being surrounded by books. Get lost in the stacks. Read bibliographies. I”s not the book you start with, it’s the book that nooks leads you to.
…Don’t worry about doing research. Just search.
Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist
It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.
Eleanor Roosevelt
(1884-1962) American columnist, lecturer and humanitarian.
To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
Mark Twain
gotta love Twain..
What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.
William Ralph Inge
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love
Goethe
Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love.
Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon
