Martha Stewart Quotes

I'm very, very serious - I'm serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

Once you take yourself too seriously the art will suffer.

How do you take what you do as seriously as possible but not so seriously that it ends up inhibiting what you do?

You can take your play seriously as long as you seriously play.

You wouldn't want any creative process to lose its sense of fun and adventure, but that doesn't mean you can't take it seriously as well.

It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.

My lifelong ambition has been to unite the utmost seriousness of question with the utmost lightness of form.

There have been years where I've had to take a real job and I wrote during slow times and lunches. I think never forgetting how lucky I am to be able to do something I love has really fueled me.

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

I'm open to whatever. I think sometimes when people collaborate these days, it's a little bit convenient.

It could be confusing to people, but it's very simple to me, and it always has been - creating the thing that I want. In music, I don't think there's any need to be an all-rounder and do everything yourself. Play to your strengths and do what you feel. Or do whatever the material itself demands.

I will just create, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, I'll create something else. I don't have any limitations on what I think I could do or be.

The older I get, the more I think lightness of touch is an incredibly difficult thing to do.

Think inside the work - outside the work

You're at your best, when you're focused and you're serious and passionate about what you do, but at the same time you can relax and have fun and be confident.

Let's start with Jesus' answer: "Look for the kingdom first and all else will come together." Life is fragmenting, fragmented. I have a thousands things to do, others do too. We can live our life as if the main question is, "How can keep it together? How do I juggle all the balls? But the real question is, "How can I stay home - interiorly home - while I do these many things?

I don't even think about the word. But I do have certain things where I just go, "Aaaaahhh," irritatingly boring and insistent because I want it to look that way and I can do it - I don't even know if you'd call it passion or obsession. Obsession, possibly, but I really love what I do.

All I'm about is just the pen.

I'm a better musician now, and I rarely practice because age has taught me the value of economy. And I think I'm a better writer now because I don't waste as much time, dilly-dallying and sassafrassin' and sloop and sloppin' and frying eggs. When you start writing, half the time you're just saying howdy to the page. My process now is a little more lean and muscular. I don't waste a lot of time. When I had kids, I learned how much time I had before, and how much time you actually need to do something. If you don't have time, you'll just do it and get it done.

Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be.

We should never allow ourselves to be bullied by an either-or. There is often the possibility of something better than either of these two alternatives.

I think if you're inspired, you don't let a little thing like scheduling and deadlines get in your way.

I work using the Brian Eno school of thinking: limit your tools, focus on one thing and just make it work… You become very inventive with the restrictions you give yourself.

When you work with an actor and then you discover new things that are better, I think you gotta be free to be able to go with the new things that you're finding. I think that's very important. I have a strong idea when I go to shoot a movie but I also love to discover things when I'm on set as well.

I think we definitely want to focus on the simplicity aspect because it's something that's built into the culture even here at Twitter. Constraints inspire creativity.