Ray Bradbury Quotes

That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.

The muse is not an angelic voice that sits on your shoulder and sings sweetly. The muse is the most annoying whine. The muse isn't hard to find, just hard to like - she follows you everywhere, tapping you on the shoulder, demanding that you stop doing whatever else you might be doing and pay attention to her.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

There are whole months at a time when my head is so full of ideas that I wake in the middle of the night and lie in the dark telling myself stories. There are also long, dark nights when I just know I'll never write another word: I'm finished, empty, a husk... Oh dear, yes, twitch, yawn, how I've suffered insomnia for my art.

Usually, when inspiration strikes late, the light of day reveals that I haven't gotten an idea for a book so much as a psychiatric case study.

I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.

I never get writer's block, but I do have days where I crawl under the duvet.

For me, the most difficult piece is the one I'm about to make.

Production is something I've never come to terms with.

We know that creative people have all sorts of demons.

As creators, we feel constant demand for innovation from the world. This puts immense pressure on the creative process and oftentimes can have a dampening effect.

The Q I loathe and despise, the Q every single writer I know loathes and despises, is this one: 'Where,' the reader asks, 'do you get your ideas?' It's a simple question, and my usual response is a kind of helpless, 'I don't know.'

How many artists subscribe to the notion that creative success depends on input from the fickle muse or her modern avatar, mental illness? Probably very few.

I've had one experience of writer's block in my life, and it was living hell. It was a terror for me.

It must be extremely uncomfortable to live with a writer - all that preoccupation and brooding.

I've learnt that the muse is like an angry girlfriend. If she comes knocking you better be home because if you're not, she doesn't leave a note saying pick up after 3 P. M. from the post office. The gift she had is gone forever.

Since many years, I realized that I have a darker side in me, even though I still believe I'm a very positive person. But still, there is still darkness that makes me write music and create in general, and it affects everything that I do. I believe it's a beautiful darkness.

I think being creative is incredibly difficult and painful.

I don't know how to produce work if it's not something that's deeply scaring me or troubling me.

I don't know where the ideas come from, and it's terrifying. They seem to be absolute flukes. When I was in my 20s, I'd walk around with a notebook all the time and make sure I wrote down anything that occurred to me. Now I'm just hoping that some sort of event will descend on me.

It is a little bit demoralizing to work a show, and you just try so many times to get something, and the creator just keeps saying, 'No, not that.' Then they just instantly come up with something.

When I am not writing, I'm dying.

I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.

I feel like a lot of time my writing is like having about twenty boxes of Christmas decorations. But no tree. You're going, Where do I put this? Then they go, Okay, you can have a tree, but we'll blindfold you and you gotta cut it down with a spoon.

Philip Larkin didn't write for several years before his life ended. And when he was asked why he didn't write, he said the muse deserted him. And when I read that, it really had a profound effect upon me, sort of scared me. So that's why I think I have no right to assume that some thought is going to come... But I think, in my imagination, if it is it, there will probably be something else I'm interested in.