Katherine Anne Porter Quotes

As a young kid I assumed that everybody was sort of on the same wavelength as I was and then I found out in a lot of small ways that that wasn't the case. It's sort of a mixed blessing. My mind is like a puppy. It goes all over. I guess writing fiction was a way of harnessing that. I could hook a puppy up to a treadmill and get something out of it.

Writing is a subtle art that is reached mostly by self-discovery and experimentation.

That is my reality. It's that important to nurture and foster my own creativity. There are plenty of birthday parties I haven't been able to go to, weddings I haven't been able to go to because I've been working. Those are things that have not been easy to give up, but at the same time, it is my reality. It's my responsibility.

Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

As an artist, you keep learning. You draw out different parts of you.

I try to make sure the projects that I choose are something that will teach me something new, either about myself or about my art.

Write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

No one can learn to love by following a manual, and no one can learn to write by following a course. I'm not telling you to seek out other writers but to find people with different skills from yourself, because writing is no different from any other activity done with joy and enthusiasm.

I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible.

I started painting as a hobby when I was little. I didn't know I had any talent. I believe talent is just a pursued interest. Anybody can do what I do.

I'm learning more about life when I'm playing too, and writing music. I'm learning more about life, the connection.

I think perhaps I've learned to be myself. I have a theory that all artists who would be important - painters and writers - must learn to be themselves. It takes a very long time.

Dramatic reading and writing for kids can open a window to individuality and to expression that nothing else does, because all of a sudden the pressure is off and they just bring themselves to the table.

All a person can do in this life is gather about him his integrity, his imagination, and his individuality – and with these ever with him, out front and in sharp focus, leap into the dance of experience.

Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.

Ultimately, I think writing is a mixture of craft, inspiration, and being incredibly, courageously explorative with yourself - and being brutally honest, too.

I think everyone is born creative but it can be suppressed by fear.

I certainly wasn't born with creative writing. Maybe there's a certain amount of learning and then it's up to the person. I think in the end it's your favourite books that are the best teachers. That's the way I've learned the most, by far.

I was happy because I was acting. Most of the time for nothing. But I was learning and to learn that you can learn opens up the world for you.

Don't worry if people think you're good. Make this your experience. And find out what makes you unique as an artist. You don't get the opportunity to do that as much in the real world.

With acting, I started as a kid and it was my safe space and the place where I felt the most free to be all of myself. What gets explored in our show is where that instinct starts and where it meets with career, and how that can change your path a bit.

How many of you are creative? I don't know, but for me, when you make a bunch of things over time and then you keep them... you forget. I look through my sketchbooks and I'm an audience for myself.

Choosing the freedom to be uninteresting never quite worked for me.

I actually think leaving your children alone to fantasize, to write, to make projects on their own is good for them. Breathing down their necks is a form of control. Children should have their own space.

Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself.