The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “creativity”

An Artist’s Life Manifesto: Marina Abramović’s Rules of Life, Solitude, and Silence
An Artist’s Life Manifesto: Marina Abramović’s Rules of Life, Solitude, and Silence

“An artist should stay for long periods of time looking at the stars in the night sky.”

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Patti Smith on Listening to the Creative Impulse and the Crucial Difference Between Writing Poetry and Songwriting
Patti Smith on Listening to the Creative Impulse and the Crucial Difference Between Writing Poetry and Songwriting

“In times of strife, we have our imagination, we have our creative impulse, which are things that are more important than material things. They are the things that we should magnify.”

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Elena Ferrante on the Myth of Inspiration, Writing on Demand, and the Central Truth of the Creative Process
Elena Ferrante on the Myth of Inspiration, Writing on Demand, and the Central Truth of the Creative Process

“Words draw out words: one can always write a banal, elegant, heartfelt, amusing coherent page on any subject, low or high, simple or complex, frivolous or fundamental.”

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Mary Oliver on Staying Alive
Mary Oliver on Staying Alive

“The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion [and] standing within this otherness — the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books — can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.”

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The Third Self: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life
The Third Self: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

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In the Company of Women: Wisdom and Advice on the Creative Life from Beloved Women Artists, Makers, and Entrepreneurs
In the Company of Women: Wisdom and Advice on the Creative Life from Beloved Women Artists, Makers, and Entrepreneurs

Neko Case, Nikki Giovani, Tavi Gevinson, Maira Kalman, Debbie Millman, Carrie Brownstein, and more.

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Leonard Cohen on Moonlight, the Mystique of Creativity, His Influences, and Why He Loves It When People Cover His Songs
Leonard Cohen on Moonlight, the Mystique of Creativity, His Influences, and Why He Loves It When People Cover His Songs

“It’s also very difficult to untangle influences because you represent the sum of everything you’ve seen or heard or experienced.”

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There Is a Crack in Everything, That’s How the Light Gets In: Leonard Cohen on Democracy and Its Redemptions
There Is a Crack in Everything, That’s How the Light Gets In: Leonard Cohen on Democracy and Its Redemptions

A generous reminder that we must aim for “a revelation in the heart rather than a confrontation or a call-to-arms or a defense.”

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Poet May Sarton on the Cure for Despair and the Key to Self-Discovery
Poet May Sarton on the Cure for Despair and the Key to Self-Discovery

“Sometimes one has simply to endure a period of depression for what it may hold of illumination if one can live through it, attentive to what it exposes or demands.”

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The Courage to Despair: Goethe, the Inner Tension of Creativity, and What It Takes to Be a Great Artist
The Courage to Despair: Goethe, the Inner Tension of Creativity, and What It Takes to Be a Great Artist

“[The artist] must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.”

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