Kate Christensen Quotes

I'm attracted to seeing how different I can be, pushing the boat out.

I write what I don't know. It's way more interesting.

I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home.

Creativity takes courage.

If I'm doing something I know I can pull off, then that's not the book I should be writing.

Movies that look safe are less interesting.

Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself.

The thing is doing it, that's what it's all about. Not in the results of it. After all what is a risk? It's a risk not to take risks. Otherwise, you can go stale and repeat yourself. I don't feel like a person who takes risks. Yet there's something within me that must provoke controversy because I find it wherever I go. Anybody who cares about what he does takes risks.

Unfortunately, creative people are at their most creative when writing their autobiographies.

You create identity, you're not given identity per se. What became more and more interesting to me wasn't the I, it was text because it's text that create identity. That's how I got interested in plagiarism.

I've never been averse to a little risk - after all, writing without risk is not really writing at all. Sometimes one has to just let fly with a high concept piece and see where the pieces fall. As it generally turns out, the central story is familiar, but just with different rules of engagement.

No art ever came out of not risking your neck.

Writing is like building a bridge while you're on it. If you step forward you fall off and there's nothing in front of you.

I'd rather take risks than make something that's cookie cutter.

What's interesting about writing is the invention, the creative thing. Writing about myself is a yawn.

Never be afraid to make a fool of yourself. The furthest out you can go is the best place to be.

You can only go forward by making mistakes. I'm twenty-seven, not fifty-seven. I'm not Givenchy, I'm Alexander McQueen.

Why wouldn't you write to escape yourself as much as you might write to express yourself? It's far more interesting to write about others.

You feel the call. That's the important thing. Now answer it as fully as you can. Take the risk to let all that is in you, out. Escape into the open.

When you don't know the rules, you break them all. It's hard to take big risks when you know the history of an industry and what has worked and what didn't.

So I have to create the whole thing afresh for myself each time. Probably all writers now are in the same boat. It is the penalty we pay for breaking with tradition, and the solitude makes the writing more exciting though the being read less so. One ought to sink to the bottom of the sea, probably, and live alone with ones words.

Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood.

Write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

We crave explanations for most everything, but innovation and progress happen when we allow ourselves to embrace uncertainty.

I've never felt that fear is my enemy. Fear is my friend. It offers me a chance to stay alert, keep growing, continue creating something new. If you don't take that sort of risk, you learn nothing.