Twyla Tharp Quotes

For me, songwriting is something I have to do ritually. I don't just wait for inspiration; I try to write a little bit every day.

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.

Had I mentioned to someone around 1795 that I planned to write, anyone with any sense would have told me to write for two hours every day, with or without inspiration. Their advice would have enabled me to benefit from the ten years of my life I totally wasted waiting for inspiration.

Life becomes a lot simpler for a creative person when he or she finds the routine that works best. ... get in the habit of going through the routine every day, and on some of those days, you're going to be lucky and have done some good work. ... Go to your study, close the door, invent your confidence.

If I waited to be in the mood to write, I'd barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would ever be in the mood to write? Do marathon runners get in the mood to run? Do teachers wake up with the urge to lecture? I don't know, but I doubt it. My guess is that it's the very act that is generative. The doing of the thing that makes possible the desire for it.

Whether it's a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory, the routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.

Be regular and orderly in your life, that you may be violent and original in your work.

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.

Don't fall into the trap of having to have everything perfect to write or wait until the mood strikes you. If you want it as a job, treat it like a job, and just as you don't go to work only when you feel like it, you have to condition yourself to sit and write even when the ideas don't flow.

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

There's nothing romantic about my work... I don't believe in inspiration. I believe that you get to your desk, you stay there, you work, you think of nothing else. You write and you write, and in the end, you write something good.

I'm not very prolific. I'm not good at sitting down as an artist and saying 'Okay, I need to put in my four hours today.'

I just write when the bell rings. I don't have time to wait for inspiration.

You don't get into the mood to create – it's discipline.

If you wait for inspiration, you're not a writer, but a waiter.

Those who are waiting for an epiphany to strike may wait forever. The artist simply goes to work, making art, both good and not so good.

Don't wait for the muse. As I've said, he's a hardheaded guy who's not susceptible to a lot of creative fluttering. This isn't the Ouija board or the spirit-world we're talking about here, but just another job like laying pipe or driving long-haul trucks. Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon. or seven 'til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he'll start showing up.

Sit down at ten o'clock in the morning and write anything that comes into my head until twelve. One of the few things I've discovered about writing is to form a habit that becomes an addiction so that if you don't put something down on paper every day, you get really mean and awful with withdrawal symptoms, and your wife and your dog and your kids are going to kick your ass until you get back to it because they can't bear you in that state of mind.

A lot of artists need structure.

Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don't apply to you. Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work. Every great idea I've ever had grew out of work itself. Sign onto a process and see where it takes you. You don't have to invent the wheel everyday. Today you will do what you did yesterday, tomorrow you will do what you did today. Eventually, you will get somewhere.

I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer's block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don't. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.

My father really taught me that you really develop the habit of writing and you sit down at the same time every day, you don't wait for inspiration.

There is an advantage in having a routine and working with the same people when you can and in writing as a regular thing and filming as a regular thing. That routine pays off for you. You get a lot of productivity that way, rather than sitting around waiting for inspiration and waiting for the perfect thing to happen. I would be much less productive that way.

I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working.