William P. Young Quotes

All writing comes by the grace of God.

When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God.

If you're so afraid of your imagination that you stifle it, how are you going to know God? How can you imagine heaven?

I'm a believer. I don't go to church. I don't belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn't write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief.

I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

What can a pencil do for all of us? Amazing things. It can write transcendent poetry, uplifting music, or life-changing equations; it can sketch the future, give life to untold beauty, and communicate the full-force of our love and aspirations.

Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.

Art is spiritual.

My Catholic faith is my life. Any artist, if he is to be faithful to how he perceives the world and to the nature of his creative gifts, cannot divorce the two. To create is to love. To love is to create.

The visionary imagination is the source of art and religion.

Creative instinct is personal.

If you work on your creativity, you deepen your spirituality. And if you work on your spirituality, you deepen your creativity.

I really think that if there's any one enemy to human creativity, especially creative writing, it's self-consciousness.

Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.

A friend of mine who writes history books said to me that he thought that the two creatures most to be pitied were the spider and the novelist - their lives hanging by a thread spun out of their own guts. But in some ways I think writers of fiction are the creatures most to be envied, because who else besides the spider is allowed to take that fragile thread and weave it into a pattern? What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it to create some semblance of order.

You either have an imaginative mind or you don't. All of my writing is God-given. I don't write my stories - they write themselves.

Creativity is a spiritual issue.

I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language.

The four rules of writing... 1. Write to discover. 2. There is no greater discovery than love. 3. All love comes from the Creator. 4. Write what you will.

All makers must leave room for the acts of the spirit. But they have to work hard and carefully, and wait patiently, to deserve them.

When we are writing, or painting, or composing, we are, during the time of creativity, freed from normal restrictions, and are opened to a wider world, where colors are brighter, sounds clearer, and people more wondrously complex than we normally realize.

The key to being a wonderful writer is not to write. You just get out of the way. Leave room for God to walk in the room. And when I write something that I know is right, I get on my knees and say 'thank you.'

It's a delicious thing to write. To be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating.