David Whyte Quotes

I have to expose myself and then accept the judgment that audiences and critics will have. And that's okay. I appreciate the elliptical nature of it. Sometimes people are more in the mood to be nice to me than others, and that's great.

You're demonstrating your own skills in a vulnerable way when you draw.

I never wanted to grow a thicker skin; I felt a real sense of pride in my thin skin, and in a weird way, I still do, because it's my thin skin that allows me to empathize with other people. It's the thing that allows me to create vulnerable art. It's the thing that allows me to create other feelings and make songs that actually grab people and touch people. I feel like I've spent my life fighting that thicker skin because I don't want to become an embittered asshole.

art is exposure. And until you've developed a degree of maturity to handle that knowledge, you are revealing what other people keep hidden.

I love writing. I like reading, other people, not myself.

I've been really lucky to spend some time around actors and artists I really admire. One thing I gathered from asking a lot of questions is that part of this job and this life we've chosen is doing personal exploration in front of an audience. In a lot of ways, that's what art is: personal searching with people watching.

The better the artist, the more vulnerable he seems to be.

When I first started writing, a friend said I should be careful because I'm letting people know how to reach right in and play with my workings. And they do!

Self-exposure is commendable in art only when it is of a quality and complexity that allows other people to learn about themselves from it.

Help people to meditate, because there is nothing more creative than meditation. Each art and each creativity can be tremendously enhanced by meditation. If somebody is a painter and he starts meditating, his painting will have a sudden jump, it will become tremendously profound - because whatsoever you paint reflects your mind. If the mind goes deeper, your painting will go deeper. You paint your mind. What else can you paint? You paint yourself.

Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different. They crash through the logic of individual utility and behave paradoxically. Instead of recoiling from the sorts of loving commitments that almost always involve suffering, they throw themselves more deeply into them. Even while experiencing the worst and most lacerating consequences, some people double down on vulnerability. They hurl themselves deeper and gratefully into their art, loved ones and commitments.

Millions of people are suffering: they want to be loved but they don't know how to love. And love cannot exist as a monologue; it is a dialogue, a very harmonious dialogue.

When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people?

The art of life is to stay wide open and be vulnerable, yet at the same time to sit with the mystery and the awe and with the unbearable pain - to just be with it all.

It's important to be yourself. What art does for everyone, helps you understand yourself and in a distilled way, whether it's a painting or a scene in acting or a joke. It distills something about everyday life that can be important to you.

Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do. You may be a fool but you're the fool in charge.

I've mostly been focusing on writing, and I've really enjoyed not playing music. It will always be part of my life, but I don't feel the immediate need to be playing for people.

There must be understanding between the artist and the people. In the best ages of art that has always been the case. Genius can probably run on ahead and seek out new ways. But the good artists who follow after genius — and I count myself among these — have to restore the lost connection once more.

I made all my mistakes playing with people.

The simple truth is that being a creative artist takes courage; it’s not a job for the faint of heart. It takes courage each and every time you put a book or poem or painting before the public, because it is, in fact, enormously revealing.

I take making music seriously, but you have to have a sense of humor about yourself. I invite people into my life. That's how I do it.

Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.

Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good shape and good sound.

What does a painter do? You get a painting, you put some intent and passion and emotion into these things, and hope the people will receive it. Same as a playwright. It's art.

Our business in living is to become fluent with the life we are living, and art can help this.