3 Inspiring (and 1 Odd) Creator Quotes
“That’s a fool’s experiment. But I love fools’ experiments…”
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Today I want to experiment with something a little different, and a little shorter. Below are four quotes from creators — three relatively straightforward and (I think) inspiring. And a fourth that is unusual, and thought-provoking. I like to share lines that make me think, or feel, or inspire or challenge me, or just pique my interest.
I’d like two things from you:
First, tell me what the last quote makes you think about. You can use the comments, or, if you got this in an email, just hit reply. (If you didn’t get this in an email, you can subscribe here.)
Second, let me know if you like this quote-sharing edition of the newsletter; I’m thinking of making it a regular feature.
…To the quotes:
Three Inspiring Creator Quotes…
“People think it’s about, like, self-expression or something, and it’s not about that. You do it because it’s involving and stimulating and you like the process of doing it.”
-Filmmaker Ethan Coen — who with his brother wrote and directed films like Fargo and No Country for Old Men — talking about why he stepped away from movies and embraced the challenge of writing a play.
“I never planned to be a writer at all. For years, maybe even today, sometimes I think, ‘What exactly am I going to do with my life? What is my career going to be? I’m only 80, for God’s sake!”
-That’s Anne Tyler, Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the most-well regarded novelists of a generation. According to The Times, “Tyler regards herself as something of an accidental novelist — she began her first when she was stuck at home without a job.”
“That's a fool's experiment. But I love fools' experiments. I am always making them.”
-Charles Darwin, telling a colleague why he put an unfertilized female flower under a bell jar, at a distance from pollen from a male flower, just to see if anything would happen. (As far as I know, courtship did not occur.)
…And One Odd Creator Quote
“If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall.”
-Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, in a prize acceptance speech.
Let me know if any of those quotes sparked a thought; I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation.
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Until next time…
David
[Photo by Rubberball/Mike Kemp/Getty Images]