Sally Mann Quotes

Some people say, 'Write what you know.' My thing is, 'Write what scares you.'

But I've always tried to make the best of fear, then, because without fears there's no art.

I do worry that it's impossible to write something original, that there's nothing that a human hasn't already thought of. But I can put it out of my mind and get on with what I'm doing.

Most of the time, I do what I'm offered, but after I worked for it. I think I try much harder for the things that scare me and inspire me. The things that scare and inspire you are things that are different from what you did before.

You have to be willing to be afraid if you're going to be an artist.

'Whiplash' scared me. I feel you should only do projects that scare you to some degree. I get motivated by those sorts of feelings.

With each book, I'm trying to do something that terrifies me.

It's hard to make something that's interesting. It's really, really hard. It's like a law of nature, a law of aerodynamics, that anything that's written or anything that's created wants to be mediocre. The natural state of all writing is mediocrity... So what it takes to make anything more than mediocre is such an act of will.

No art ever came out of not risking your neck.

I suppose that there are endeavors in which self-confidence is even more important than it is in writing -- tightrope walking comes immediately to mind -- but it's difficult for me to think of anybody producing much writing if his confidence is completely shot.

I'm widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I'm not sure I can finish, generating at the edge of my powers. Some people bungee jump; I write.

I often tell people to stop being afraid of writing bad poetry, or bad anything. I think that a lot of times, when people claim that they have writer's block, or that they get stuck, it's just because they're scared of writing bad things.

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Risk is essential. There is not growth of inspiration in staying within what is safe and comfortable. Once you find out what you do best, why not try something else?

I've wanted to write ever since I've gotten into comics. I wrote little things for myself when I was doing mini-comics and things, before becoming a professional. But I just figure at some point or another, I've got to make the leap. I just have to do it.

I think what I would say to my younger self, and probably to younger, just starting-out writers is that a lot of times you're just afraid to put yourself out there, and it's uncomfortable because it's working up the courage to do something, to push yourself to do those things.

Any creative process is about being in a territory which isn't secure, isn't necessarily familiar, and isn't convenient in any sort of way. And that's the excitement of it.

Art, it seems to me, doesn't need freedom so much as it needs courage and love - some would call it 'soul' or 'Eros.'

The older I get, for me it's about fear. If I read something and it scares the hell out of me, that's what I want to do. If it's a challenge and a massive risk and I'm going out on a limb ... those are the ones I want. And they are few and far between. I don't work very much because I'm very specific about what I want to do.

You need to get outside of your comfort zone to write songs that are interesting, songs that are compelling, songs that are different from what other people are writing.

You need fear to create, to live.

I swim in a sea of words. They flow around me and through me and, by a process that is not fully clear to me, some delicate hidden membrane draws forth the stuff that is the necessary condition of my life.

I write in the studio.

If you really want to tell stories, do it and don't be dissuaded.

When I sit at that typewriter, I have to be frightened of what I'm trying to do. I'm frightened by my own belief that I can actually get a story down on paper.