Quotes: Eric Booth

"Learning theorists now argue for the importance of non-productive play as a critical component of productive advancement. Play is one of the few universal ways in which we test what we know."

–– Eric Booth, American actor, teacher, and author 

Source: Eric Booth. The Everyday Work of Art. Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks, 1997; p. 143.

via: Commonplace Book 2006-2009, 2009, p. 190. 

For the past three years, I have maintained a daily sketchbook practice. It's a durational art practice and the purpose of it is for creative self-care and to see how I and the practice develop over time. In these dedicated sketchbooks (I have now filled 13), I go through phases of collage, drawing, painting, printmaking. Each day I play. Each day I "see and respond."

Quotes: Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

"Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts forever." 

–– Lao Tzu (c. 500 BCE), Chinese philosopher and writer 

Source: Tao Te Ching

via: Commonplace Book 2024, 2025, p. 34. 

Quotes: David Lynch

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men's store. A cat nap in your office chair. Or two cups of good, hot black coffee." 

–– David Lynch (1946-2025), American filmmaker, visual artist, musician and actor 

Source: F.B.I Special Agent Dale Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan), Twin Peaks. 

via: Sketchbook K 11, 2024, p. 44.

Quotes: Darren Hardy

"You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine."

–– Darren Hardy (b. 1971), American author and publisher 

Quotes: Louise Penny

"His life had never had a rhythm. Each day had been unpredictable and he seemed to thrive on that. He'd thought that was part of his nature. He'd never known routine. Until now. 

"Gamache had to admit to a small fear that what was now a comforting routine would crumble into the banal, would become boring. But instead, it had gone in the other direction. 

"He seemed to thrive on the repetition. The stronger he got, the more he valued the structure. Far from being limiting, imprisoning, he found his daily rituals liberating."

–– Louise Penny (b. 1958), Canadian author 

Source: Louise Penny. The Long Way Home. New York: Minotaur Books, 2014; p. 4. 

via: Commonplace Book, 2013-2014, 2014, p. 173.

Quotes: Leo Tolstoy

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." 

–– Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian writer 

via: Commonplace Book 2013-2014, 2014, p. 112. 

Quotes: Anthony Doerr

"We don't write what we know exactly, but rather we write to know. Writing in that sense becomes better understood as a kind of prayer, a kind of inquiry, something best done over time, repetitively, day after day." 

–– Anthony Doerr, American writer 

Source: Austin Kleon Tumblr, Friday July 26, 2024.

via: Commonplace Book, 2022-2024, 2024, p. 189.

Quotes: Oliver Burkeman

"The psychology professor Robert Boice spent his career studying the writing habits of his fellow academics, reaching the conclusion that the most productive and successful among them generally made writing a smaller part of their daily routine than the others, so that it was much more feasible to keep going with it day after day. They cultivated the patience to tolerate the fact that they probably wouldn't be producing very much on any individual day, with the result that they produced much more over the long term. They wrote in daily sessions –– sometimes as short as ten minutes, and never longer than four hours –– and they religiously took weekends off." 

–– Oliver Burkeman (b. 1975), British author and journalist 

Source: Oliver Burkeman. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. New York: Allen Lane/Penguin Random House, 2021, p.181. 

via: Commonplace Book, 2022, 2024, p. 140.

Quotes: Ben Hogan

"Every day you don't practice you're one day further from being good." 

–– Ben Hogan (1912-1997), American professional golfer 

Source: Twyla Tharp. The Creative Habit, p. 32. 

via: Day In & Day Out Notebook, 2020, p. 38. 

Quotes: Lance Letscher

""My work is really slow and repetitive. ... You have to go through almost excruciating boredom to be spontaneous and creative, to get to a place where the work really flows." For eight hours a day he combines experience and improvisation, As he described the process to an interviewer in 2004, "It is mysterious in a mundane way.""

–– Lance Letscher (b. 1962), American collage artist and Charles Dee Mitchell

Source: Lance Letscher Collage. Introduction by Charles Dee Mitchell. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2009, p. 6.

via: Day In & Day Out Notebook, 2019, p. 36. 

Quotes: Joan Didion

"I work every day. Sometimes I don't accomplish anything ... but if I don't work every day, I get depressed and get afraid to start again. So I do something every day."

–– Joan Didion (1934-2021), American writer  

Source: Nitch.com, 2020

via: Day In & Day Out Notebook, 2019, p. 37. 

Quotes: Gretchen Rubin

"What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while." 

–– Gretchen Rubin (b. 1965), American author and speaker 

Source: Outer Order, Inner Calm. New York: Harmony Books, 2019, p. 155.

via: Day In & Day Out Notebook, 2019, p. 37. 

Quotes: Albert Camus

"There is no greatness without a little stubbornness. Works of art are not born in flashes of inspiration but in a daily fidelity." 

–– Albert Camus (1913-1960), French writer and philosopher 

Source: Maria Popova Instagram, August 21, 2023. 

via: Sketchbook 33, 2023, p. 88.

Quotes: Cennino Cennini

"Set yourself to practice drawing, drawing only a little each day, so that you may not come to lose your taste for it, or get tired of it. ... Do not fail, say you go on, to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is, it will be well worth while, and will do you a world of good." 

–– Cennino Cennini (c. 1360 – before 1427), Italian painter and writer 

Source: Il Libro Dell'Arte, c. 1435 in Betty Edwards. The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1999 (first published in 1979); p. 249.

via: Sketchbook 21, 2013, p. 9 

Quotes: Rainer Maria Rilke

"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches. For the creative, there is no poverty."

–– Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist 

via Sketchbook 20, 2012, p. 60

Quotes: David Horvitz

"Do something everyday, regardless. Nothing will happen unless you first initiate a process of cause and effect. This starts with an action. Reawaken the possibility of possibility. Reawaken it with play." 

–– David Horvitz (b. 1982), American visual artist 

via: Sketchbook 15, 2011, p. 143