Walter Pater Quotes

Usually composers need a reason to write. I need a deadline.

The way to get things done is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel.

Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further.

For me to get up and feel the urge to go to the set and all that, I have to feel there is something tremendously vibrating to achieve there. I need to lose sometimes a consciousness of the person and the reality in order to be happy to come back into the reality and happier to live it for this cause, to be an artist in this life.

There's no writer's block; there's only distraction.

I really believe that cultivating creativity, as a general principle, is about managing your energy.

Life without dreams is like a bird with a broken wing - it can't fly.

Any good film you see gives you enough motivation and adrenaline rush to produce good content, while a bad film can get you so angry that you produce even better content.

Throughout my life, there's just periods when I write and periods when I don't. I don't feel like anything's really blocked. It's just not where things are at right now, and it's just a matter of time until there's something going on where I feel compelled to write.

I'm not really worried about writer's block.

If I don't feel like writing on a certain day, I just go to the cafe and hang around.

If a composer suffers from loss of sleep and his sleeplessness induces him to turn out masterpieces, what a profitable loss it is!

You always hope that the cloak of inspiration will fall, and you'll be O.K.

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.

At certain points if your life, you like doing more. I'm not sure what causes it or for what reasons; you just do it.

Inspiration is intention obeyed.

He who has made a thousand things and he who has made none, both feel the same desire: to make something.

You say, "Something important really happened here. I really had hold of something I was visited by the muse." And that's enough to make you continue the months and years to finish the whole book.

The secret of passion is purpose.

Sometimes you just get in there and force yourself to work, and maybe something good will come out, ya know? Deadlines and things make you creative. Opportunity and telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want-that just kills creativity.

All impediments in fancy's course Are motives of more fancy.

[Rejection] made me quit writing once. For six months. I started up again when my then seven-year-old son asked me to start writing again because I was too grumpy when I wasn't writing.

There is no ritual that enhances creativity other than just starting.

The instinct to produce great work doesn't require a fancy notebook.