Ann Demeulemeester Quotes

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

I got in touch with the creative process between the age of 14 and 16, mainly because I was alone so much.

Solitude is a breeding ground for idiosyncrasy, and I relish that about it, the way it liberates whim.

The one happiness is to shut one's door upon a little room, with a table before one, and to create; to create life in that isolation from life.

I think my becoming a writer had much to do with spending a chunk of each year sitting by myself out in a tent without radio, without newspapers, without a whole lot of people to interact with, without anybody having any sort of similar background to me.

And here in my isolation I can grow stronger. Poetry seems to come of itself, without effort, and I need only let myself dream a little while painting to suggest it.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.

All good writing comes out of aloneness.

I played a lot of dress-up in my room. I really liked being alone. I had a lot of friends, but I had an only-child, live-in-my-head personality.

As a writer, I'm mostly at my desk, staring out my window. No one sees me.

I used to be locked up in my bedroom for hours, just listening to music, making some of my own, doodling and writing poetry.

Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio or looked at television. They had 'Loneliness' and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.

I'm not going to be like, "I gotta get this idea out of my head." It's like, "OK, here's a clean slate, and I've got all these paints, and all these brushes, and this is what I'm going to do with it." It reveals itself, and you take a step back and say, "What's happening here? Where are we going? What does this mean? Do I need to break it open? Does it need to just be what it is? Should it end now?"

The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone.

I need the pain of loneliness to make my imagination work.

Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.

I mean, what do you think creativity is? Nothing but self-indulgence. And the more self-indulgent it is, the more interesting it becomes. So I think that part of creativity is also falling in love with your own narcissism: accepting it, using it as an asset.

Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

I love how people in this business push themselves to know themselves, the world, and their creativity better.

It is well to be alone. It fertilizes the creative impulse.

Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.