“People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.”
Mozart ∞
“I will keep stressing the point about creativity being augmented by routine and habit. Get used to it. In these pages a philosophical tug of war will periodically rear its head. It is the perennial debate, born in the Romantic era, between the beliefs that all creative acts are born of (a) some transcendent, inexplicable Dionysian act of inspiration, a kiss from God on your brow that allows you to give the world The Magic Flute, or (b) hard work.”
Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit
More from this great book:
“After so many years, I’ve learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns.”
On Mozart in the film Amadeus:
“The film Amadeus (and the play by Peter Shaffer on which it’s based) dramatizes and romanticizes the divine origins of creative genius. Antonio Salieri, representing the talented hack, is cursed to live in the time of Mozart, the gifted and undisciplined genius who writes as though touched by the hand of God. Salieri recognizes the depth of Mozart’s genius, and is tortured that God has chosen someone so unworthy to be His divine creative vessel.
Of course, this is hogwash. There are no “natural” geniuses. Mozart was his father’s son. Leopold Mozart had gone through an arduous education, not just in music, but also in philosophy and religion; he was a sophisticated, broad-thinking man, famous throughout Europe as a composer and pedagogue. This is not news to music lovers. Leopold had a massive influence on his young son. I question how much of a “natural” this young boy was. Genetically, of course, he was probably more inclined to write music than, say, play basketball, since he was only three feet tall when he captured the public’s attention. But his first good fortune was to have a father who was a composer and a virtuoso on the violin, who could approach keyboard instruments with skill, and who upon recognizing some ability in his son, said to himself, ‘This is interesting. He likes music. Let’s see how far we can take this.’”
“Now let me give you a marketing tip. The people who can afford to buy books and magazines and go to the movies don’t like to hear about people who are poor or sick, so start your story up here {indicates the ‘good fortune’ part of the graph}.”
Kurt Vonnegut
“Art is a jealous mistress, and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider. ”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The No. 1 quote critics give me is ‘Thom, your work is irrelevant.’ Now, that’s a fascinating, fascinating comment. Yes, irrelevant to the little subculture, this microculture, of modern art. But here’s the point: My art is relevant because it’s relevant to ten million people. That makes me the most relevant artist in this culture, not the least. Because I’m relevant to real people.”
Thomas Kinkade vs Richard Branson vs Andy Warhol vs Basqiat vs Paul Klee vs Kanye West vs Joey Ramone… Which is the best artist? Which the most transparent and insightful and true to themselves? One day let’s get drinks and talk late into the night about it… and about the implications our answers have on how we live.
“Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.”
Henry James, 1884
“One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan [Moby Dick]? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms!”
Friends, hold my arms!
“You are not an artist… You make things in order to sell them. The difference between you and an artist is you can’t wait years to be discovered.”
“I am myself the matter of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject.”
Michel de Montaigne
“Please understand that everything everyone has done in this room — including myself — is primitive. We’re in the first moments of doing something. And we have this arrogance that we’re ‘really doing something.’ No. We’re in this rapidly changing thing and we can’t vest in the excellence or the finality of anything we’re doing.”