Gretel Ehrlich Quotes

Sometimes people invent things because they want to stay alive or feed their children or conquer the village next door. But just as often, new ideas come into the world simply because they're fun. And here's the really strange thing: many of those playful but seemingly frivolous inventions ended up sparking momentous transformations in science, in politics and society.

As an artist, you find at different times you want to do different things.

I think, by nature, human beings are curious. And I think that's only amplified as an artist.

An artist without ideas is a mendicant; barren, he goes begging among the hours.

do what only a true artist can do ... pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation

We need men who can dream of things that never were.

To be an artist, you have to nurture the things that most people discard.

an artist is always seeking revelation.

Those people who recognise that imagination is reality's master, we call sages, and those who act upon it, we call artists.

Artists are the people for whom the world is not enough.

If a writer stops observing, he is finished.

Art is for the artist is only suffering through which he releases himself for further suffering.

You beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come: Knock as you please, there's no body at home.

The river itself has no beginning or end. In its beginning, it is not yet the river; in the end it is no longer the river. What we call the headwaters is only a selection from among the innumerable sources which flow together to compose it. At what point in its course does the Mississippi become what the Mississippi means?

When magic through nerves and reason passes, Imagination, force, and passion will thunder. The portrait of the world is changed.

A great artist ... takes what he did not make and makes of it something that only he can make.

Politics should seize the imagination.

An artist’s imagination is his greatest tool

Dreaming is one of humanity’s greatest gifts; it champions aspiration, spurs innovation, leads to change, and propels the world forward.

If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself.

To be an artist means not to compute or count.

...when the words pour out of you just right, you understand that these sentences are all part of a river flowing out of your own distant, hidden ranges, and all words become the dissolving snow that feeds your mountain streams forever. The language locks itself in the icy slopes of our own high passes, and it is up to us, the writers, to melt the glaciers within us. When these glaciers break off, we get to call them novels, the changelings of our burning spirits, our life's work.

If I knew where creativity came from, I'd probably be a lot less stressed about coming up with new stories.

How did I come to be an artist ? Endless curiosity, observation, research - and a great amount of joy in the thing

Like Thornton Wilder said, time is not a river, but rather a landscape that you step in and out of. I've always found that true of creative work, and I've heard so many songwriters and writers in general say the same thing... When you're going into the realms of your self and trying to tap into the mystery of this creative source, linear time kind of falls away.