Michael Korda

"By concentrating our efforts upon a few major goals, our efficiency soars, our projects are completed, we are going somewhere."

— Michael Korda

English Editor & Writer

1933 - 

Many people try to do too much — set too many goals for themselves — and as a result they are pulled in too many directions and accomplish too little.  You will do better if you concentrate on a few key goals.  I usually focus on one goal at a time.  I don't want to be distracted and pulled in too many directions.  I encourage you to narrow your focus to 2 - 3 goals.  Life keeps us busy and demands a lot of us.  According to research, only about 2% of Americans actually take the time to write down their goals.  And some people teach that you should write goals in each major area of your life.  And while it is okay to write down multiple goals, most people can only focus and concentrate on one thing at a time.  So don't over burden yourself and expect more than you can deliver.  Achieving your dreams comes one building block at a time.

Dean Koontz

"If something in your writing gives support to people in their lives, that's more than just entertainment — which is what we writers all struggle to do, to touch people."

— Dean Koontz

American Novelist

1945 -

All art is about touching people.  Have you ever been moved by a painting?  Or cried at the end of a movie?  Or spend hours lost in a fictional world created by a writer?  In the end, the reason we create is to communicate our feelings to others — to connect emotionally with other people.  Does your art move you to tears?  Then it will probably touch others as well.

Here is an interview with Dean Koontz.

Amazing Art! What is real and what is not?

Check out this amazing sidewalk art?  What is real and what is not?

Amazing Art

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Amazing Beach Art

Click through these pictures for inspiration.

Amazing Beach Art

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Liz Smith

"Begin somewhere; you can't build a reputation on what you intend to do."

— Liz Smith

American Journalist

1923 -

Wanting to be a writer does not make you a writer.  You have to write.  You have to put pen to paper.  Fingers to the keys.  Wanting to be a painter does not make you a painter.  You have to paint.  You have to put brushes to canvas.  Many people say they want to write a book someday.  And often when someday arrives, they have not written their book.  Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do to day.  Steal ten minutes here and ten minutes there.  If you wait until the time right, you will never create.  The time will never be perfect.  Create today.

Albert Schweitzer

"Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it."

— Albert Schweitzer

German Author, Organist, Physician

1875 - 1965

Life is not easy.  We are confronted by many obstacles.  Even when we choose the creative path, others will put stones in our way.  Nothing is easy.  You must learn to accept the challenges you face and work tirelessly to overcome them.  Playing the victim does you no good.  Quitting because the road is hard is not the answer.  If your passion is to create artistic works, then let nothing stand in your way.   

Chaim Potok

"I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it.  It has a quality and a dimension all its own.

— Chaim Potok

American Novelist

1929 - 2002

Silence is an important element in the life of a writer or painter.  Without silence, the subconscious does not have an opportunity to work its magic.  Treasure those moments of silence because they will bear great fruit.

Ovid

"Chance is always powerful.  Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."

— Ovid

Roman Poet

43 BC - 17 AD

Where have you cast your hook?  Do you keep your fishing hook in the water or is it hanging in your garage?  Catching fish takes patience and being prepared?  Are you ready to catch the big one or will it get away?

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

"Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone."

— Lawrence Ferlinghetti

American Poet & Painter

1919 - 

Don't Give Me

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves."

— Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Colombian Novelist

1927 -

Creating works of art is the way to give birth to yourself again and again.  Whether we tell stories or paint or sculpt we are re-creating our lives.  We are giving birth to ourselves anew.  Every work of art you create is a part of who you are and who you are becoming.  Celebrate each new creation as if you are celebrating your birth.  Be happy that you have the discipline to become born again and again.

Frederick Franck

"Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world."

— Frederick Franck

1909 - 2006

Dutch Artist & Writer

Are you rediscovering the world?  Is your art teaching you to see the world in new ways?  Creativity is a tool to help us better understand the world in which we live.  Through our creativity we are able to explore and find new answers to old problems.  Creativity is a discipline that changes the way we see.  Are you practicing the discipline of creativity?

Maurice Grosser

"The painter draws with his eyes, not with his hands.  Whatever he sees, if he sees it clear, he can put it down.... Seeing clear is the important thing."

— Maurice Grosser

American Artist

1903 - 1986

Do you see the world clearly?  Are your eyes and heart open to the world around you?  Seeing  clearly is a key talent needed by every creative leader.  You have to be able to cut through the false and fake to find the truth.  You have to see the world as it is, not as others want you to see.  Do you draw with your eyes?  Each person brings his own perspective to the world that is why it is so important that you can see clearly.  Don't let the blindness of others blind you.  Open your eyes and taste the divine colors.

Vincent Van Gogh

Age 13

"I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing."

— Vincent Van Gogh

Dutch Artist

1853 - 1890

Woman
(1882)

Do you take delight in your work?  Are you having fun?  I pass the time in meetings by doodling.  Some would say that doodling is not drawing and I probably would agree.  But there is something about moving a pencil across a piece of paper that relaxes me.  What do you take delight in?  What do you enjoy doing?  What relaxes you?

Mark Rothko

"Pictures must be miraculous: the instant one is completed the intimacy between the creation and the creator is ended.  He is an outsider.  The picture must be for him, as for anyone experiencing it later, a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar need."

— Mark Rothko

Russian Artist

1903 - 1970

Often when I reread one of my poems, I am surprised by what I wrote.  And sometimes I can't believe that I wrote it.  Somebody else must have written it.  As Rothko says, I am an outsider to my own work.  Have you ever felt that way?  Is there distance between you and your creation?  Does your work surprise you?

Beverly Pepper

Split Ritual II
(1992)

"I feel that one has to have a bit of neurosis to go on being an artist.  A balanced human seldom produces art.  It's the imbalance which impels us . . . . The artist lives with anxiety."

Beverly Pepper

American Sculptor

1922 - 

Do you have a bit of a neurosis?  Do you sometimes feel off balanced?  Do you live with anxiety?  Then maybe you are an artist.  Or just maybe you are a human being.  I don't know any normal humans.  Most are slightly off kilter — off balance.  And that is okay.  Our neurosis fuels our creativity.  Our anxiety helps us produce our art.  It is okay to be strange and weird — to see the world differently then everyone else, to feel slightly off balance.  Be happy you are you.  Enjoy your point of view.

Alice Walker

"Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter.  I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book.  If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for."

— Alice Walker

American Novelist/Poet

1944 -

Can a person live a horrible personal life and still write great literature or paint great pictures?  Should we make moral judgements on the personal lives that creative people live?  Or should we separate the personal lives from the work?  Not easy questions.  Nor easy answers.  Many writers and artists have done things in their personal lives that were not morally right.  Where do we draw the line?  Hitler?  There are those who say all his paintings should be destroyed.  Charles Dickens?  He was not the best of husbands.  John Cheever?  He was a drunk.  Like Alice Walker, I hope that art will make us better people, but I am not sure that it does.  What do you think?

William Faulkner

"Get it down.  Take chances.  It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good."

— William Faulkner

American Novelist

1897 - 1962

The fear of many writers and artists is having to face a blank sheet of paper or a blank canvas.  And what holds the writers and painters back is the need to be perfect.  They believe that everything they write or paint must be the best so the fear of not being good enough paralyzes the artist within.  You now have the permission of William Faulkner, one of the great American novelists, to create bad stuff.  And I second him.  The important thing is to get the paint on the canvas or the words on paper.  The clean-up will come later in the form of revision.

O. Henry

"I'll give you the whole secret to short story writing.  Here it is.  Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself.  There is no Rule 2."

— O. Henry (William Sydney Porter)

American Writer

1862 - 1910

I think O. Henry's secret applies not to just to short story writing but to all the arts.  The first and most important person whom you have to please is yourself.  If you spend your creative time trying to please others, you may be successful in the short term, but you will fail in the long term.  If you publish writing which you are not happy about, it will become apparent to your reader.  If paint pictures to please others, you will not be happy.  If you write poetry to make others happy, you will fail.  So the message is simple:  create for yourself and your audience will find you.

Ken Robinson

"Very many people go through their whole lives having no real sense of what their talents may be, or if they have any to speak of."

Ken Robinson

English Author/Speaker

1950 -

Are you aware of all your talents and gifts?  I was fifty years old before I realized my voice was a gift.  In recent years I learned that I have a talent for geographic memory.  I can visit some place and come back five to ten years later and still recognize landmarks and find my way around.  We discovered that my wife has a photographic memory.  When she was in school she could repeat the textbook paragraph by paragraph on her essay tests.  Teachers accused her of cheating.  When my wife was a child she taught herself to change her dreams.  If she had a nightmare, she would change the dream.  Today, scientists call it lucid dreaming.  We all have talents and gifts that we don't realize that we have.  What are your hidden talents?  Celebrate your gifts.

Here is Ken Robinson with his first TED talk.

Flannery O'Connor

"Writing is like giving birth to a piano sideways.  Anyone who perseveres is either talented or nuts."

— Flannery O'Connor

American Novelist

1925 - 1964