Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. —Gustave Flaubert
Whatever we say, we’re always talking about ourselves. —Alison Bechdel
Write the book you want to read
A calendar helps you plan work, gives you concrete goals, and keeps you on track. The comedian Jerry Seinfeld has a calendar method that helps him stick to his daily joke writing. He suggests that you...
Franz Kafka wrote, It isn’t necessary that you leave home. Sit at your desk and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t wait, be still and alone. The whole world will offer itself to you. And Kafk...
The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes. —A...
Part of the art of creating is in discovering your own kind. They are everywhere. But don't look for them in the wrong placesHenry MillerAs you put yourself and your work out there, you will run into...
Paul McCartney has said, I emulated Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis. We all did.
Books are made out of books. — Cormac McCarthy Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From David Byrne, How Music Works Mike Monteiro, Design Is a Job Kio Star...
The writer Jonathan Lethem has said that when people call something original, nine out of ten times they just don’t know the references or the original sources involved.
Drawing is simply another way of seeing, which we don’t really do as adults, says cartoonist Chris Ware. We’re all going around in a cloud of remembrance and anxiety, he says, and the act of drawing h...