Creative Block Quotes

Catch Either/Or Thinking

Anxious perfectionists will typically think "I need to perform flawlessly at all times," with their underlying assumption being "or else it will result in disaster." This is a common type of thinking trap termed either/or thinking. In this case, the either/or is this: Either there is flawless performance or complete and utter failure, and nothing in between.
Not only can this style of thinking make you feel crushed when you don't meet your own ideal standards, but it also often leads to perfectionism paralysis. Take, for example, an artist who sees his future career prospects as becoming either the next Picasso or a penniless flop; this person doesn't see other possible outcomes in between. You can see how this would give the artist a creative block.
For other folks, their hidden assumption may be slightly different: "Either I need to perform flawlessly at all times, or other people will reject me." When I look back at my clinical psychology training, I realize I had this belief at that time. At a semiconscious level, I thought that the only way to prevent getting booted out of the program was to score at the top of the class for every test or assignment.
Ultra-high standards often arise because a person is trying to hide imagined catastrophic flaws. In this scenario, people often think that if their flaws get revealed they'll be shunned, and so the only way to conceal their defects is by always excelling. When people who hav ~ Alice Boyes

The power of mistakes enables us to reframe creative blocks and turn them around ... The troublesome parts of our work, the parts that are most baffling and frustrating, are in fact the growing edges. We see these opportunities the instant we drop our preconceptions and our self-importance. ~ Stephen Nachmanovitch

What's wrong with creative block? Might it not just be that periods
even extended ones
of productive hiatus are essential mechanisms of gestation designed to help us attain higher standards in our pursuit of creative excellence? ~ Alexi Murdoch

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. ~ Lukas Foss

I have a binging imagination and thus a mental hoarding problem.
What I need to do is host an estate sale in my heavy head
and invite those suffering from creative block in through the porches of my ears to browse through the crowded unorganized trove of
curious coinages, precious epiphanies and junky minutiae and take away inspiration while uncluttering my poor mind. ~ Stephen Stokes

I think creative blocks come from people's life journeys. If you don't know who you are or what you're about or what you believe in it's really pretty impossible to be creative. ~ Rainn Wilson

A creative block is a fear about the future, a guess about the dangers dwelling in the dark computer and the locked studio. ~ Eric Maisel

The way to get over creative block is to simply place some constraints on yourself. It seems contradictory, but when it comes to creative work, limitations mean freedom. ~ Austin Kleon

Companies have too many experts who block innovation. True innovation really comes from perpendicular thinking. ~ Peter Diamandis

Everyone is a creative agent ... The tools are your imagination and your imagination is limitless. ~ Oliver Herring

But William Dilworth English, M.D., was not thinking of the immediate punishment of his son; that was something which could be decided upon. He was not thinking of the glory of having a son who hopped freight trains. The thing that put him in the deep mood and gave him the heavy look that Julian saw on his face was that 'chip off the old block' refrain of Butch Doerflinger's. William Dilworth English was thinking of his own life, the scrupulous, notebook honesty; the penny-watching, bill-paying, self-sacrificing honesty that had been his religion after his own father's suicide. And that was his reward: a son who turned out to be like his grandfather, a thief. ~ John O'Hara

The head is in charge of thinking; the heart is in charge of feeling; and the spirit realizes the creative, infinitely thriving power of life while imagination acts as translator and synthesizer. ~ Deborah Sandella

There was a period of time between 2005 and 2008 that was pretty challenging. I had taken a leap of faith and moved to Los Angeles from New York, which had been incredible to me professionally. I couldn't get arrested in this town. There was a lot of doubt and fear that crept in, and boy, did insecurity stick her foot up in it. There were many obstacles that were overcome during that very dark period - creative, financial, emotional, and spiritual - and I'm here, standing, stronger than ever. ~ Erica Tazel

The great creative individual ... is capable of more wisdom and virtue than collective man ever can be. ~ John Stuart Mill

Creative leaders inherently know when rules need to be challenged, and they can see when a more flexible approach should be taken. ~ John C. Maxwell

Having more candidates come with a creative and artistic sensibility would actually bring more people out to vote. ~ Zephyr Teachout

I have been using Victorinox Cutlery since I was a young man, when my parents gave me a block set to properly equip me for my culinary apprenticeship. ~ Daniel Humm

The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance. ~ Eric Hoffer

If you stop your creative process every time you think you need to cheer yourself up, or rid yourself of emotional conflicts, your life will be over before you can create anything of any real significance. ~ Robert Fritz

Love is a flame without smoke, ever fresh, creative, joyous. Such love is dangerous to society, to relationship. So, thought steps in, modifies, guides it, legalizes it, puts it out of danger; then one can live with it.

Krishnamurti, Jiddu. The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti (Kindle Locations 1628-1629). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

London

The Institute

Year of Our Lord 1878


"Mother, Father, my chwaer fach,

It's my seventeenth birthday today. I know that to write to you is to break the law, I know that I will likely tear this letter into pieces when it is finished. As I have done on all my birthdays past since I was twelve. But I write anyway, to commemorate the occasion - the way some make yearly pilgrimages to a grave, to remember the death of a loved one. For are we not dead to each other?

I wonder if when you woke this morning you remembered that today, seventeen years ago, you had a son? I wonder if you think of me and imagine my life here in the Institute in London? I doubt you could imagine it. It is so very different from our house surrounded by mountains, and the great clear blue sky and the endless green. Here, everything is black and gray and brown, and the sunsets are painted in smoke and blood. I wonder if you worry that I am lonely or, as Mother always used to, that I am cold, that I have gone out into the rain again without a hat? No one here worries about those details. There are so many things that could kill us at any moment; catching a chill hardly seems important.

I wonder if you knew that I could hear you that day you came for me, when I was twelve. I crawled under the bed to block out the sound of you crying my name, but I heard you. I heard mother call for her fach, her little one. I bit my hands until they bl ~ Cassandra Clare

Some musicians play blues, others classical jazz or bluegrass. I like to play political roles because I can merge my political interests with my creative interests. ~ Jeffrey Wright

By Jove, it's great! Walk along the streets on some spring morning. The little women, daintily tripping along, seem to blossom out like flowers. What a delightful, charming sight! The dainty perfume of violet is everywhere. The city is gay, and everybody notices the women. By Jove, how tempting they are in their light, thin dresses, which occasionally give one a glimpse of the delicate pink flesh beneath!

"One saunters along, head up, mind alert, and eyes open. I tell you it's great! You see her in the distance, while still a block away; you already know that she is going to please you at closer quarters. You can recognize her by the flower on her hat, the toss of her head, or her gait. She approaches, and you say to yourself: 'Look out, here she is!' You come closer to her and you devour her with your eyes.

"Is it a young girl running errands for some store, a young woman returning from church, or hastening to see her lover? What do you care? Her well-rounded bosom shows through the thin waist. Oh, if you could only take her in your arms and fondle and kiss her! Her glance may be timid or bold, her hair light or dark. What difference does it make? She brushes against you, and a cold shiver runs down your spine. Ah, how you wish for her all day! How many of these dear creatures have I met this way, and how wildly in love I would have been had I known them more intimately.

"Have you ever noticed that the ones we would love the most distractedly ~ Guy De Maupassant

The gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move towards the vision. We call this gap creative tension. ~ Peter Senge

Women are clear-headed, they are more creative and for this reason, sometimes, also more fragile. ~ Emma Bonino

I do it when I'm a preparing for a role quite a bit - I sit with music. It helps influence the discovery of something. Then sometimes during filming I like to listen to the same things. It brings me back to a place where I just feel more creative and focused. ~ Rami Malek

The most creative people have this childlike facility to play. ~ John Cleese

The highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. Creative effort spent for any other reason than the joy of being in that light filled space, love, god, whatever we want to call it, is lacking in integrity ... ~ Marianne Williamson

The creative process is probably closest to problem solving, but it differs from it in a number of ways. In problem solving the immediate goal is a specific one ... in the creative process there is no such clear goal. ~ Anne Roe

When you spend your life in a creative mode all the time mindless leaf blowing can be a welcome break. ~ Art Wolfe

I write to believe in goodness. ~ Red Haircrow

The theater, for me, has always been a place where I'm free to be more creative, a place to sharpen my tools. ~ Ethan Hawke

Whenever you hear the word "inevitable", watch out! An enemy of humanity has identified himself. ~ Stephen Vizinczey

Confidence is a trait that has to be earned honestly and refreshed constantly; you have to work as hard to protect your skills as you did to develop them ... The one thing that creative souls around the world have in common is that they all have to practice to maintain their skills. Art is a vast democracy of habit. ~ Twyla Tharp

The problem with reality TV is that creative writers are not involved; TV folks are, and some journalists who will only mine the surface of subjects. Hard work necessary for discovering and delineating the intimacies of the subjects they capture is mostly avoided. ~ Lee Gutkind

Meaning and morality of One's life come from within oneself. Healthy, strong individuals seek self expansion by experimenting and by living dangerously. Life consists of an infinite number of possibilities and the healthy person explores as many of them as posible. Religions that teach pity, self-contempt, humility, self-restraint and guilt are incorrect. The good life is ever changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative and risky. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I was powerless over my childhood but the coping strategies that I developed, to survive, all of which were creative and brilliant and got me through, as an adult those became my defects of character. Those became my shortcomings, control and all that kind of stuff ... and that's my responsibility.
I was a blameless child in what happened in the home; I take responsibility for my behaviors as an adult. ~ Ashley Judd

Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction can be difficult, lonely job; it's like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There's plenty of opportunity for self-doubt. ~ Stephen King

Life, I'd heard someone say, is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. It seemed to me that it was both at once, even for those of us who don't do much of either. ~ Lawrence Block

Thinking about the things that happened, I don't know any other ball player would could have done what he (Jackie Robinson) did. To be able to hit with everybody yelling at him. He had to block all that out, block out everything but this ball that is coming in at a hundred miles an hour and he's got a split second to make up his mind if it's in or out or down or coming at his head, a split second to swing. To do what he did has got to be the most tremendous thing I've ever seen in sports. ~ Pee Wee Reese

My family was always active, and our thing was family walks. Not walks around the block, but more like eight-mile hikes up mountains. ~ Mika Brzezinski

Failing to writer everyday doesn't mean that you've given up, though a chapter a day - keeps writers block away! ~ David Batterson

Art indeed is a term referring to the social source and to the social utility of creative acts. ~ Laura Riding

All of this material on key length block size and the number of rounds of encryption may seem dreadfully boring; however, it's important material, so be sure to brush up on it while preparing for the exam. ~ James M. Stewart