Paul Cezanne Quotes

But it's like the horror of being in a studio with a blank canvas. I used to always run out of ideas because there are so many possibilities and I would just think, well what am I going to do now!

Blank paper always symbolizes the anxiety of the painter.

I'm kind of an insecure artist. I hop from piece to piece. I always think my life depends on every painting. Every painting is my first painting.

People speak of the fear of the blank canvas as though it is a temporary hesitation, a trembling moment of self-doubt. For me it was more like being abducted from my bed by a clown, thrust into a circus arena with a wicker chair, and told to tame a pissed-off lion in front of an expectant crowd.

As a typical creative, I am all ego and insecurity!

Every artist has a moment where they think about quitting music for a moment because it's scary.

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

Everybody faces a blank piece of paper, no matter what they've written or painted or composed before. I can't imagine approaching every single new project with-without doubt.

For a long time I managed to think two things simultaneously, that I am actually a good playwright, and that the next time I write a play I will be revealed as someone who is no good at all.

No matter how many awards you've won or how many sales you've got, come the next book it's still a blank sheet of paper and you're still panicking like hell that you've got nothing new to say.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.

There's one thing now that I experience every day when I'm making a film. I get up and think to myself, 'Am I going to be able to do it today?' I figure as long as I have that fear, I'll be alright.

I feel like once I say out loud, to the public, what I'm working on, it's never going to be an actual book. So until it's close to done, I keep pretty quiet about my next stuff!

Writing is the hardest for me. It doesn't come as naturally as the other forms, and I feel far more dread during the process. Acting and voice acting are more mercurial and maybe come a little easier to me.

The hardest thing about writing, for me, is facing the blank page.

As a writer, a blank page will humble the hell out of you. It always does, and it always will.

Empty canvas. In appearance - really empty, silent, indifferent. Stunned, almost. In effect - full of tensions, with thousand subdued voices, heavy with expectations. A little frightened because it may be violated

Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, ‘You can't do a thing’. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerizes some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all.

I have a hard time sometimes watching my own work.

I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.

Sometimes you wake up with mini panic attacks where you feel like 'Oh my God! I don't have a film right now! Should I just do something that comes my way because I don't have another film?' But I feel at the end of the day, your gut takes over.

There are two voices: the first says write; the second hardly speaks, but I know what he wants. And if I let him, nothing would get done. He hovers at the edges.

I think being creative is incredibly difficult and painful.

I don't like seeing talented storytellers ruled by fear.

I'm certainly afraid of not being able to write for some reason. I guess I've had spells of not necessarily writer's block, but something like that. I find that pretty terrifying.