Eleanor Catton Quotes

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Being essentially a creator, I never set out to shock, always thinking about creating my work and not about the benefits it could produce.

An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God.

There are always a bunch of ideas floating around and I do the best that I can to try to not do them. The ideas don't go away and, over time, are finally like, "Okay, it's been around so long, I have to get this thing out," and it somehow ends up coming to some version of fruition.

A true artist is always out of his time.

He lives with his creativity in high gear.

As a director, you try to find what is creative.

No one was creating and I always wanted to be created on.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

As a creative person, you want to start with a blank canvas.

Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art.

I'm interested in creating new work.

If you have the ideas, and you're a creative person, then you don't really differentiate in how your ideas manifest themselves.

If you're always thinking about someone else's work, about the tradition you're working in, how can you possibly make anything good?

It's very important to understand that we never do the same thing twice; each of our projects is unique. We'll never do another 'Gates.' Each project is a unique image. We do not know in advance how the work will look. I do preparatory drawings, but they are only projections of our vision.

You never know what an artist is going to create next.

Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is.

Copy nature and you infringe on the work of our Lord. Interpret nature and you are an artist.

As I get on and films take four years to complete, I tend to have a hankering for very short projects so you can move on to the next idea. It's the ideas I'm interested in. What comes out of your head.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

The function of the artist is to invent, not to chronicle.

The secret sauce of the business that I can offer is my creativity, and in order to keep my creativity alive and fresh, I have to pretend that no one is watching the show, that there are no audiences, there are no ratings; I'm just telling a story.

I've worked with people who wanted to be creative every day: it was like a goal to arrive with something very special. Sometimes it's just disturbing, because special is good when it's needed. But when it's not needed, it's confusing, and you go away from the authenticity by a strong desire to be unique and singular.

That's the thing about creating. When you create, you create your own thing, whatever that is. It's always going to seep through in whatever you do.

Creativity is not about making 30 songs in 30 days. It's never about demand and supply. No one can possibly do that.