Judy Collins Quotes

If I get writer's block - this is going to sound funny - I take a shower. Something about the water feels like I'm cleaning my brain as well as my body.

I don't fight creativity. I don't fight against not being creative. If I'm not being creative, I'm not forcing it.

I always have music playing in my studio when I design. It really gets me in the mood and allows me to focus.

But then I go through long periods where I don't listen to things, usually when I'm working. In between the records and in between the writing I suck up books and music and movies and anything I can find.

I try to think of it not as writer's block, but a time where you just need to live life and experience things so you have something to write about.

But the muse won’t always cooperate and she will never be coerced. Sometimes she’d rather take a nap or see a mid-afternoon movie.

I don't generally listen to music while working, but sometimes music can help me get past minor writer's block.

When I have a creative block, I take walks. I like to see what shapes stick out - so many legs rushing by at once, it can seem abstract. I don't need to see great art to get stirred up. Music does that for me more easily.

Everybody knows that I don't have a muse. I'm not interested in that.

I do not believe in inspiration, but I must have a title in order to work, otherwise I am lost.

I think sometimes with new characters, you can kind of hit a creative valley, and it's important to recognize when you're in that valley so you can get back out and get back to that peak.

For a long time, I would write without music, because I thought it was distracting until I appreciated that it actually unlocks a certain unconscious productivity vault in my mind.

Sitting around and waiting for your muse is not the best choice.

Writing screenplays makes me a better musician because it clears my head. After writing a movie, I go running back to music as fast as I can.

Most artists have experienced the creative block. We get stuck in our work. We beat our head against the wall: nothing. Sometimes, it is because we are trying something at the wrong time.

Writing, for me, is very inspiration-dependent. And inspiration can be a jerk.

How many artists subscribe to the notion that creative success depends on input from the fickle muse or her modern avatar, mental illness? Probably very few.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

I believe sometimes we aren't always in charge of everything that we do creatively. We submit to things as we're going on our own journey.

Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands out and invites you to work on it, to elaborate it or animate it in some way. It's a mysterious process.

Whenever I finish a movie, I usually go through a period where I think I'll never have another idea. And then, somehow, you get another idea.

There are definitely times - and I think this is pretty common among cartoonists - where you spend an entire day trying to think of an idea, and you're like, 'I give up.' And then you go and take a shower or run an errand, and halfway there, you get an idea.

My way of being with people is probably incredibly unhealthy, in that I'll be incredibly social, and I won't write a word for maybe a year, and I'll just be with people, going to parties and soaking up stories, and just sort of recharging all of my ideas.

The mythology is that from chaos comes great work. I actually used to think that when I was younger, and I no longer think that anymore.

I've talked to a lot of artists - painters, writers, musicians - many of whom have had great ideas on trains. The only explanation I have is all that stuff is coming at you while you're relaxed, so somehow it kicks you into hyperspace in terms of brain function.