Will Self Quotes

One of my life philosophies is that you have a choice to make when you're doing something creative. You can be cheesy... or you can be lame.

A creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

If you're creating anything at all, it's really dangerous to care about what people think.

The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it. Get over it.

When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.

There's no such thing as a cautious creative.

Writers and artists never pay attention to advice given by their elders, quite rightly. The only worthwhile advice is the most general: 'Keep trying, don't give up, don't be discouraged, don't pay attention to detractors.' Everyone knows this.

My concepts are never bright ideas; they're never notions I think will sell or be trendy or attract new fans. I don't think that way. All I can do is sing from my life.

Find your own specific voice in filmmaking and go for it. Either people will get it or they won't and that's what it's all about.

I just want to stay creative, share my ideas and see where it all leads.

Trying to force creativity is never good.

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

I think that, with anything creative, you should have the freedom to experiment, and that experimentation means not feeling totally responsible for how other people perceive it.

An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.

I wanted to make my sophomore film as different as possible. I didn't want to be pigeonholed. I didn't want to be identifiable.

I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing; I don't know if it's any good. I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line.

My early experiences in animation taught me that following someone else is not a great idea.

When I begin working on a production, I don't really think about my previous album or albums. I try to have a real creative process.

Everyone is creative, but we are only as creative as we allow ourselves to be.

You can't ever create defensively. You just have to create the next thing that really speaks to you.

If you look at somebody like Sam Bee, she got to create her own thing without any expectations that there was a show there. That was probably liberating for them.

There's nothing that compares with the time spent all by myself on a creation that is all my own. I still think of my solo work as my 'home planet' in comics, though I've learned to listen much more to editors and trusted friends for feedback.

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.