Charlie Haden Quotes

I can concentrate on my art.

Part of my function as a writer is to dream awake. And that usually happens. If I sit down to write in the morning, in the beginning of that writing session and the ending of that session, I'm aware that I'm writing. I'm aware of my surroundings. It's like shallow sleep on both ends, when you go to bed and when you wake up. But in the middle, the world is gone and I'm able to see better.

To draw you must close your eyes and sing.

If I were to try and find a unifying emotion that kept me calm and focused while I was dancing or writing or solving a math problem, I think the one unifying thing about all those that keeps my interest is creativity.

When I'm sitting at my computer writing, I really have this fiendish smile on my face. I am not thinking about the past or the future or how it's going to be received. I feel that I'm very lucky that way; I don't carry that particular anxiety around with me. I'm not anxiety-free by any means, but that happens to be one that I've been spared.

Just keep thinking about the good side of ADD - the creativity and the originality it can stimulate.

I love audio books, and when I paint I'm always listening to a book. I find that my imagination really takes flight in the painting process when I'm listening to audio books.

I consider creativity to be a more non-rational, subconscious thing. You have a relationship to your creativity - you can feed it with content, with some rational prodding and sleep and things like that, but the mechanisms by which your creativity work are largely unknown.

You know, as you compose music, you're just off in your own world. You have no idea where reality is, so to have an idea of what people think is pretty hard.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

I try to stay focused on my creativity.

I've never tried to define my states of mind when I write.

Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.

You think about the beauty and what you want to transmit. If I think about designing, I can't design.

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

I'm very easily distracted unless I have music on. Listening to music while I brainstorm makes me think of scenes that would fit the mood of the music I'm playing.

When I model I pretty much go blank. You can't think too much or it doesn't work.

Removing all stimulation around you is a really positive thing in terms of stimulating your creativity.

Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache.

Imagination has rules, but we can only guess what they are.

I do not 'get' ideas; ideas get me.

Designing is a matter of concentration. You go deep into what you want to do. It's about intensive research, really. The concentration is warm and intimate and like the fire inside the earth - intense but not distorted. You can go to a place, really feel it in your heart. It's actually a beautiful feeling.

It's an amazing feeling to go into a studio and really be alone.

I'm a believer that you shouldn't really talk about the drawing until you're done with the drawing.

Now to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the products of reflection.