Louise J. Kaplan Quotes

I've always been a history buff. It was one of the few subjects at school that really, really caught me. I think you'll find a lot of actors will be interested in history because it sparks your imagination so much. When you enter a period of history, your imagination just goes wild in creating the world, which is really what acting is.

We have such a great depth of human history in all of the arts, whether it's opera or mathematics or painting or classical music or jazz. There's so many things to study, new books to read, and certainly always ways to transform old ideas and to come up with new ones.

A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.

That's how I make work. Along the way, I take notes, I read about history and popular culture. Sometimes I act out things in the studio. I go back to my mother's hair salon so I can hear three voices going all at once. I pull inspiration from everything.

All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.

I surrendered to a world of my imagination, reenacting all those wonderful tales my father would read aloud to me. I became a very active reader, especially history and Shakespeare.

It is easy to be inspired by history when you're living in a part of it and allow that to seep into your writing: having said that, a minimalist room with no distractions is often better; the most exciting visions should already be in your head.

Never limit yourself because of others' limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.

Two things significantly distinguish human beings from the other animals; an interest in the past and the possibility of language. Brought together they make a third: Art. The invisible city not calculated to exist. Beyond the lofty pretensions of the merely ceremonial, long after the dramatic connivings of plitical life, like it or not, it remains. Time past eternally present and undestroyed.

Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.

My imagination is a kind of animal. So what I do is keep it alive.

My recent drawings that personal ones aren't fashion-related. I sometimes sit and draw people on the bus, or some fantasy hybrid animal. You know, wherever the hand will lead.

Fostering creativity in children is as important as any other part of the school curriculum because it feeds the soul. A daily dose of creativity helps children imagine a better world and then create it.

My work is the embodiment of dreams in one form or another.

The truth is we're all probably more creative than we realize, except we spend our lives watching TV or reading somebody else's book. We never pick up a brush and stand in front of our own easel.

I have discovered such wonderful things that I was amazed... Out of nothing I have created a strange new universe.

It's essential for us to develop an imagination that is participatory. Art is the primary way in which this happens. It's the primary way in which we become what we see or hear.

Talent is the ability to say things well, but genius is the ability to, well, say things.

Painting must be fertile. It must give birth to a world.. ..it must fertilize the imagination.

I don't really believe in writer's block or anything like that. If I'm not feeling words, I may pick up an instrument and play with sounds or delve into different types of creativity and expression.

I fantasize about everything; being a fireman, an Indian chief, climbing mountains. Anything is possible.

The best stories infuse wonder.

One of the secrets to success is ideas mixed with inspiration

It's a delicious thing to write. To be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating.

Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration.