Eric Maisel Quotes
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The artist must possess at least as much conviction as does his enemy, the dogmatic, mealy-mouthed, anti-art bigot.
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If you bring your sexual impulses to your creative work... you'll be working from deep in the genetic code, down where life wants to make new life and feel good in the process.
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Settle into mystery as you would settle into your most comfortable chair. Listen. Have visions. Lose yourself.
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Ambition is vital, but dangerous: it is a keen motive and a driving force, but over what edge can it drive the artist?
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Abstraction is itself an abstract word and has no single meaning ... Every word in our language is abstract, because it represents something else.
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Chaos is everywhere - and artists, to fashion art and live truthfully, have no choice but to invite this unwanted guest right into the studio.
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Dream, but expect nothing. Desire, but expect nothing. Hope, but expect nothing. Release your need to control and gain real control.
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The wise artist makes peace with the fact that he will understand less than he had anticipated.
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To obsess too virulently is to walk alone in anxiety. But to obsess too little is to wall oneself off from one's own creativity.
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Even though we require flexibility to negotiate our changing circumstances, we are rather built to anxiously turn away from alternatives.
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A composition is an arrangement, built out of parts, that aims at seamlessness.
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A key to a long, productive writing life is finding ways to support that life, emotionally and existentially.
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You can't plan in advance for everything - every mood swing, every mistake you might make in execution, every shift in your circumstances. But you can keep updating your plan.
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Boredom is the thing that regularly arrives between excitements and episodes of meaning: it is as natural as the tides, and in it an artist can drown.
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Rekindling hope, engaging in inner work, and venturing into the world amount to a complete plan for picking yourself up when you're down.
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Your chances of creating deeply hinge on the quality of your awareness state.
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When a thing is not done, continuing to work is the strength; but when it is done, the strength lies in stopping.
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When you flow like water you bring all of your talents and resources to your creative work... Flow around every obstacle you encounter, including any you've erected yourself.
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An artist must struggle to accept the shape of this universe - and achieve some important successes.
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Whatever pain and suffering you've experienced in your life has been a blessing at least in this one regard: you now know some true things that you couldn't have learned any other way.
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While artists fervently believe that the art marketplace was invented by the devil and remains in his henchman's hands, they have no choice but to carry long spoons and sup there.
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I am a human being and an artist: I really, simply, surely am.
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When you consciously decide to breathe more slowly and deeply, you alert your body to the fact that you want it to behave differently. You are not just changing your breathing pattern, you are making a full-body announcement that you are entering into a different relationship with your mind and your body.
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Hurray for criticism, if it means that an artist's voice is heard. Let the wise artist invite criticism and survive it when it comes.