Tuesday, September 11, 2007

a quote

Wow - two posts in one evening! I was going to stop with one but then I found this quote and it made me want to run and dive into a pot of paint. It made me want to stay up all night creating. I made me want to call Mr. Gregory and invite him over for a delicious tea-party or home made sushi to thank him for putting this piece of writing into the world! So of course, I had to share. (This is an enormous quote and there's MORE than this! It comes from his wonderful book, The Creative License.)

"To be creative, you must be brave and allow yourself to take risks. You must also be a little crazy.

But have an appropriate degree of perspective. Reassure yourself that by doing a watercolour or throwing a pot you won't set off some chain reaction that destroys your entire universe. The whole reason you are feeling any sort of need to be creative is because you, as an organism, feel some need to adapt to changes in your environment. Your job may be too restrictive. Your relationship may be showing you new possibilities. Your daily paper may be reshuffling your deck. Your body may be changing. Or you may just be more sensitive that those around you, a canary in a coal mine, bellwether to changes that others don't yet sense.

Under all those conditions, creative change is no longer a risk - it's an imperative. Give yourself the chance to experiment and reconfigure your life. Start today. Before the volcano erupts or the meteor hits the earth, before you get hit by a bus, or your candidate loses, or your boss makes a cutback - before the changes erupt, and it's too late.
It's time to stop being a dinosaur and start figuring out how to be a bird." - Danny Gregory, The Creative License page 78.

Good night!!

9 comments:

Kirsten Michelle said...

sounds like the new year is going well for you ;-)
great quotes!!!
thank you for sharing them today.
thinking of you,
k
xo

daisies said...

and yet another beauty :) breathing with inspiration!! lovely

Colorsonmymind said...

great!

Chelsea Talks Smack said...

This quote makes me want to do all of the "irrational" yet inspirational creative type things, which I feel i've been doing a lot of lately, thanks for posting this quote, it gives me permission! haha.

Susannah Conway said...

here is my unedited reaction to that quote:

fucking YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:-) xo

Kel said...

serendipity baby - I just finished this book - wonderful, soul-healing stuff, eh?

harmonyinline said...

inspiring quote!now I have to go create.

Jennifer/The Word Cellar said...

Everywhere I turn these days I'm finding reminders to let creativity flow through me and to stop bowing down to the fear. Thanks for being one of those reminders.

Giftbasketworldwide said...

Your blogs are lovely!!