• Home
• Weblog
• Quotes of the Day
• Motivational
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• Search
• Random Quotes
• Word of the Day
• Book Reviews
• Your Page

• Contribute Quotes
• Articles
• Use our Quotes
• About this Site
• FAQ
• Contact Us
  

Quotations by Author

The old ways are dead. And you need people around you who concur.
That means hanging out more with the creative people, the freaks, the real visionaries, than you're already doing. Thinking more about what their needs are, and responding accordingly. Avoid the dullards; avoid the folk who play it safe. They can't help you any more. Their stability model no longer offers that much stability. They are extinct, they are extinction.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 16. The world is changing. , 08-22-04

Part of understanding the creative urge is understanding that it's primal. Wanting to change the world is not a noble calling, it's a primal calling.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't. , 08-22-04

The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't. , 08-22-04

Your idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours alone. The more the idea is yours alone, the more freedom you have to do something really amazing. The more amazing, the more people will click with your idea. The more people click with your idea, the more it will change the world.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 2, 08-22-04

Diluting your product to make it more 'commercial' will just make people like it less.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 21. Selling out is harder than it looks., 08-22-04

Everybody is too busy with their own lives to give a damn about your book, painting, screenplay etc, especially if you haven't sold it yet. And the ones that aren't, you don't want in your life anyway.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself., 08-22-04

It's about what YOU are going to do with the short time you have left on this earth.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 23, 08-22-04

If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. In the meantime, you%uFFFDre better off going out into the big, wide world, having some adventures and refilling your well. Trying to create when you don%uFFFDt feel like it is like making conversation for the sake of making conversation.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 24, 08-22-04

Neither should you fret too much about 'writer%uFFFDs block'. If you%uFFFDre looking at a blank piece of paper and nothing comes to you, then go do something else. Writer%uFFFDs block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you SHOULD feel the need to say something.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 24, 08-22-04

You have to find a way of working that makes it dead easy to take full advantage of your inspired moments. They never hit at a convenient time, nor do they last long.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 24, 08-22-04

Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 25. You have to find your own schtick., 08-22-04

Put your whole self into it, and you will find your true voice. Hold back and you won't. It's that simple.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 25. You have to find your own schtick., 08-22-04

You can’t love a crowd the same way you can love a person.
And a crowd can’t love you the way a single person can love you.
Intimacy doesn’t scale. Not really. Intimacy is a one-on-one phenomenon.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 26. Write from the heart., 08-22-04

The best way to get approval is not to need it.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 27, 08-22-04

People who are 'ready' give off a different vibe than people who aren't. Animals can smell fear; maybe that's it.
The minute you become ready is the the minute you stop dreaming. Suddenly it's no longer about 'becoming'. Suddenly it's about 'doing'.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 28. Power is never given. Power is taken., 08-22-04

Anyone can be an idealist. Anyone can be a cynic. The hard part lies somewhere in the middle i.e. being human.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 29, 08-22-04

People are fond of spouting out the old clich%uFFFD about how Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime. Somehow his example serves to justify to us, decades later, that there is somehow merit in utter failure.
Perhaps, but the man did commit suicide.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 29, 08-22-04

The fact is, the old clich%uFFFDs work for us in abstract terms, but they never work out in real life quite the same way. Life is messy; clich%uFFFDs are clean and tidy.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 29, 08-22-04

Stamina is utterly important. And stamina is only possible if it's managed well. People think all they need to do is endure one crazy, intense, job-free creative burst and their dreams will come true. They are wrong, they are stupidly wrong.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 3. Put the hours in., 08-22-04

If you have the creative urge, it isn't going to go away. But sometimes it takes a while before you accept the fact.

Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 30, 08-22-04