Alain de Botton Quotes

Make good art.

When I first made a grid, I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees, and then a grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, 'This is my vision.'

The artist in me welcomes another opportunity to be creative.

As authors, we know that it is very difficult to unleash one's creativity.

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.

At moments we are all artists.

In the world of words the imagination is one of the forces of nature.

For Poesy alone can tell her dreams, With the fine spell of words alone can save Imagination from the sable charm And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say, ‘Thou art no Poet may’st not tell thy dreams?’ Since every man whose soul is not a clod Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved And been well nurtured in his mother tongue. Whether the dream now purpos’d to rehearse Be poet’s or fanatic’s will be known When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave.

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

There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

Artists need to express.

Art is something you can't teach, but you can inspire it.

Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.

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.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

I get so much inspiration from my travels, but I also started an exercise where I write down so many words every week. Then I begin crossing them off. We create a grid of words and also images, but words for me are more ample because you can interpret them your own way.

I want to create. I think that's the one word I can grow on.

My parents are creative on many fronts, and they pushed me to be that way, too. They wanted me to write, actually.

I think that everything is part of creativity - the more you create, the more you have ideas, and the more you meet people.

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

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

I have a desire to create more film, more beauty, more art, more love, but I don't feel desperate. It's not about creating or building a career.

No one was creating and I always wanted to be created on.

All the things we have to remember, and I've mentioned this before, is that we're all artists.