Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

it only worked because I said yes to every single tiny clue of curiosity that I had noticed around me.

What you produce is not necessarily always sacred, I realized, just because you think it’s sacred. What is sacred is the time that you spend working on the project, and what that time does to expand your imagination, and what that expanded imagination does to transform your life.

trust that the world has been educating you all along. You already know so much more than you think you know. You are not finished; you are merely ready.

You must be willing to take risks if you want to live a creative existence.

I also want to live the most vividly decorated temporary life that I can. I don’t just mean physically; I mean emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. I don’t want to be afraid of bright colors, or new sounds, or big love, or risky decisions, or strange experiences, or weird endeavors, or sudden changes, or even failure.

When my father grew curious about things, he pursued them. He had solid faith in his own capabilities.

such thinking assumes there is a “top”—and that reaching that top (and staying there) is the only motive one has to create. Such thinking assumes that the mysteries of inspiration operate on the same scale that we do—on a limited human scale of success and failure, of winning and losing, of comparison and competition, of commerce and reputation, of

You can believe that you are neither a slave to inspiration nor its master, but something far more interesting—its partner—and that the two of you are working together toward something intriguing and worthwhile.

when courage dies, creativity dies with it.