Walker Evans Quotes

The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.

I don't know why I paint what I paint. I think it comes out - it's kind of my subconscious or something.

None of my books has been ever in my head; after they're finished, they go. It's like being a sort of medium; you just grab it when it's there then just release it when it's time to go. There's a lot of instinct, not planning.

Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

Writing songs and looking for ideas is like blinking my eyes. It's an involuntary muscle. I do it without thought.

I'm not a politician or a scholar or political historian. I'm just a photographer who's trying to capture a spirit. It's not an intellectual process; it's an intuitive process.

I do not 'get' ideas; ideas get me.

It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.

I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

I don't particularly look at other artists when I'm working. But references do come into my work intuitively.

There is something in our minds like sunshine and the weather, which is not under our control. When I write, the best things come to me from I know not where.

I'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff, sniff - being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or you won't get it. First you must lose your self. Then it happens.

The unconscious mind writes poetry if it's left alone.

One writes not by will but by surrender.

I think it's important to just be in your subconscious mind - at least when you're starting an idea.

I expect photographs to find me. I never thought of looking for them. I instinctively put them there. My intellect had nothing to do with it.

I try not to get analytical in the writing process. I try to just kind of keep the flow from my brain to my hand as far as the pen is concerned and go with the moment and go with my guts.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

I consider creativity to be a more non-rational, subconscious thing. You have a relationship to your creativity - you can feed it with content, with some rational prodding and sleep and things like that, but the mechanisms by which your creativity work are largely unknown.

I write songs, and I sing them. I never formulated a plan; I can't tell anyone else how to do this. But it feels right, so I just kind of enjoy it and get on with it.

All stories come from the subconscious - which is why it doesn't make sense to over-plan.

I did go there later, but I hadn't been there before I wrote the book. Sometimes I feel like the imagined can feel more real than the real?

I don't control my writing - it controls me.

I don't outline; I listen to a kind of whisper inside the material.