Abigail Washburn Quotes

Copying isn’t particularly creative work. Being inspired by someone else’s idea to produce something new and different IS creative work.

You cannot possibly invent painting all by yourself.

I think the important thing about staying creative and staying sharp and original is not to look back too much.

Jean Renoir once suggested that most true creators have only one idea and spend their lives reworking it, but then very rapidly he added that most people don't have any ideas at all, so one idea is pretty amazing.

Originality is the only thing that counts. But the originator uses material and ideas that occur round him and pass through him. And out of his experience comes the original creation.

The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas.

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 think the idea of art kills creativity.

Somebody informed me recently that the key to every art, from writing to gardening to sculpture, is creativity. I beg to differ.

Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.

Art is about building a new foundation, not just laying something on top of what's already there.

You're not gonna write a hundred songs and have a hundred entirely different ideas. It's a matter of finding the ones that are the freshest and most unique.

I try to make things that are fresh and different, even if they are inspired by classic things.

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

A writer is an artist. They're creating things out of thin air.

Telling people how to be creative is easy - being creative is difficult.

Creativity - like human life itself - begins in darkness... bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary.

Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you.

Creativity is seeing what everyone else sees, but then thinking a new thought that has never been thought before and expressing it somehow. It could be with art, a sculpture, music or even in science. The difference, however, between scientific creativity and any other kind of creativity, is that no matter how long you wait, no one else will ever compose "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony" except for Beethoven. No matter what you do, no one else will paint Van Gogh's "Starry Night." Only Van Gogh could do that because it came from his creativity.

I'm a very creative person, and the best part about creation is creating. So I always love to come up with new things, new ideas, new thoughts. I cherish things like that.

A creative moment is part of a longer creative process which, in turn, is part of a creative life.

If you're alive, you're a creative person.

I think it's a big part of being a creative person.

A classic is a classic for a reason. Let's try to create new classics. The idea of repeating ourselves drives me a little crazy.

Creativity gives new forms, new patterns, new ideas, new art forms. And we don't know where creativity comes from. Is it inspired from above? Welling up from below? Picked up from the air? What? Creativity is a mystery wherever you encounter it.