Duane Michals Quotes

I think that anything that leads to creativity and good work is good.

Art is what can't be proven mathematically, right, it's where science ends. It's the part that makes you feel good, but you don't know why.

Magic is easy if you put your heart into it.

Art is a sense of magic.

Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more.

Magic is my paint.

The important thing is to do good work, no matter what medium you do it in.

If you love something - and there are things that I love - you do want more and more and more of it, but that's not the way to produce good work.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

Rational thoughts never drive people's creativity the way emotions do.

I don't think there's a shortage of material in the world. Or in my head. I just pray for continued good health, because I've got other stories to tell.

Fogs are like dreams that feed the soul, and without their mysterious embrace, childhood, courtship, poetry and the composition of music become all the more difficult.

Women are our most miraculous muse, an enchanted intangibility that encourages all art.

Inspiration doesn't really work like that - you're not looking out for it. Inspiration is something that tends to capture you rather than you capture it.

You're not going to do good work if you're not choosing something because it inspires you.

What you need to be a good photographer is an overwhelming curiosity and a good digestion. Sometimes you feel blessed with curiosity, sometimes you feel cursed with it.

I find inspiration and rhythm in everything. Really I do. And I find inspiration in the really quiet moments.

If you love something - and there are things that I love - you do want more and more and more of it, but that's not the way to produce good work. So as an author, I need to write what I need to write.

When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.

If I were to try and find a unifying emotion that kept me calm and focused while I was dancing or writing or solving a math problem, I think the one unifying thing about all those that keeps my interest is creativity.

Because over and over again, the times that I've done really good things is because I've had a wonderful client of some kind, and a lot of it depended on me to induce them to be creative.

An art which isn't based on feeling isn't an art at all.

There is a kind of mysticism to writing.

As soon as any art is pursued with a view of money, then farewell, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, all hope of genuine good work.

I want to feel creative when I'm working. I don't want to just work for the sake of working.