Henry Moore Quotes

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

I'm not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.

For me, the most difficult piece is the one I'm about to make.

To me, it's like the difference between a pen and a paintbrush. Music draws from almost the identical place as art does, which really is that intangible - it's like you're pulling from the ether. I don't know where it comes from. Nobody really does. It sort of arrives when it wants to.

I get my most creative sort of energy after a show. So I love to go back to the hotel and compose new material. Generally in a rush, exactly. I have to get it out somehow, otherwise I can't sleep, you know.

Any working composer or painter or sculptor will tell you that inspiration comes at the eighth hour of labour rather than as a bolt out of the blue. We have to get our vanities and our preconceptions out of the way and do the work in the time allotted.

When I work with Future, it's almost like a work of art.

You can't slot a time and a space and think 'ok now it's time to sit and compose.' It just doesn't work like that for me.

When you open your mind up, and you go into a creative state, you can't just switch if off. When you have an idea, a creative impulse, and then you ignore it, it can keep you up when you just want to go to your bed - which is why it's great to have voice recorders on your phone!

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

I've always felt that there's a point where a piece seems to be alive, that is, living. And that's the point where I know the composition is finished.

I really think of the studio as being like craftsmanship time, and then playing is about releasing energy, and the two are really different.

When I'm writing a new play, there's a period where I know I shouldn't be out in public much. I imagine most people who create go through something like this. You willfully loosen some of the inner straps that hold your core together.

Painting is a nail to which I fasten my ideas.

I've gone seventy-nine hours without sleep, creating. When that flow is going, it's almost like a high. You don't want it to stop. You don't want to go to sleep for fear of missing something.

If I'm painting, I paint every day. I'll be up in the studio from 8:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night.

Usually, I create tunes that are fragmented. I think the biggest obstacle for people with their creativity is that they feel they have to sit down and create this finished, polished product.

Everybody knows that I don't have a muse. I'm not interested in that.

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.

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

At first, I am giving energy to the creation, but later the creation seems to be giving energy to me.

Trying to force creativity is never good.

Like all artists, I go through creative spurts.

As for the zone, I always find the zone immediately after I am sure I will never ever find the zone again because it has left me for some other, better writer.

Composing demands a degree of isolation.