Chris Abani Quotes

Making art is nothing but risk, always. If it's not risk, it's no good.

Any creative process is about being in a territory which isn't secure, isn't necessarily familiar, and isn't convenient in any sort of way. And that's the excitement of it.

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.

That's what art is. You don't make up stories. You live your life.

Every film, obviously, everyone starts out aiming at making it good, and in the end, filmmaking is really fragile. Making a film is like building a house of cards on the deck of a speeding boat, or playing chess on train tracks. Every opportunity feels like that; it's the one artistic field that's unlike most of the others.

Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.

Making art is an act of faith.

A man climbs a mountain because it is there. An artist makes a work of art because it is not there.

I'd rather get back to making art than talk about it.

I love to create, and to me, the ultimate freedom of expression is a blank canvas or a block of clay to capture whatever emotions your imagination gives it.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.

I try and make little stories. Whether it's with a pencil or with bits of records, it's really the same thing.

When you make a film, it's a bet. You don't know how the film is going to be, anyway.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.

I think that every artistic venture is a risk, and it has to be that way, so you do as much preparation as you can and make that as thorough as you can possibly make it, until you turn up on set. It's about taking risks, and some might work and some might not, but that's what makes it interesting.

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

I think great art comes from being open and creative with somebody, and of course, if feelings start getting involved in that, it can either make things fantastic or really messy.

I think when you're being creative, you still attach it to reality somehow.

For me, the source material can come from anywhere. It can be a poem, it can be a dream, it can be a movie, as long as the end part of it is interesting - that's what it's about for me.

Art is action. The way I live my life to its highest degree is by writing, the practice of art.

Art is, after all, only a trace – like a footprint which shows that one has walked bravely and in great happiness.

Art is not about objects of high monetary exchange. It's about reasserting our firsthand experience in present time.

If you get bored with nothing to do, you are not a writer ... We are in the business of reproducing reality from nothing. We are the biggest liars in the world, seeking truth.