Quotes: Paul Arden

"The problem with hoarding is you end up living off your reserves. Eventually, you'll become stale. If you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish. ... Somehow the more you give away, the more comes back to you."

 –– Paul Arden (1940-2008), British creative director and author 

** Pair this quote with Annie Dillard

Source: Austin Kleon. Show Your Work! New York: Workman Publishing Company, 2014; p. 72. 

via: Commonplace Book 2022, 2024, p. 185.

Quotes: Mary Oliver

"When I walk out into the world, I take no thoughts with me. That's not easy, but you can learn to do it. An empty mind is hungry, so you can look at everything longer and closer. Don't hum! When you listen with empty ears, you hear more. And this is the core of the secret: Attention is the beginning of devotion."

–– Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet 

via: Art Alternatives Knapsack Sketchbook 2018 c, p. 48.

Quotes: Leonardo da Vinci

"It should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you really consider them well, you may find really marvellous ideas."

–– Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian painter, engineer, inventor, and architect 

via: Sketchbook 21, 2013, p. 16

Quotes: Cesare Pavese

"A true revelation, it seems to me, will only emerge from stubborn concentration on a solitary problem. I am not in league with inventors or adventurers, nor with travellers to exotic destinations. The surest – also the quickest – way to awake the sense of wonder in ourselves, is to look intently, undeterred, at a single object. Suddenly, miraculously, it will reveal itself as something we have never seen before." 

–– Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator 

Source: Dialoghi con Leuco, 1947, cited in  The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst, 1992. 

via Sketchbook 12, 2010, p. 133

Creativity quotes: Aaron Siskind

"If you look very intensely and slowly, things will happen that you never dreamed of before." 

–– Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), American photographer

Creativity quotes: Colette

"look for a long time at what pleases you, and longer still at what pains you..." 

–– Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954), French writer

Quotes 359: Joan Didion

"I'm not telling you to make the world better. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment." 

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

via Sketchbook 26, 2022, p. 135

Quotes: Oscar Wilde

"That is the mission of true art –– to make us pause and look at a thing a second time." 

–– Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish poet and playwright