Quotes & Sayings About Creative Flow

Creative exhaustion is first cousin to writer's block. First off, I try to accept that when it hits, I am not wasting time, but preparing myself to return to work. I blog more. I do something different, like answering this question. If I can't force myself to finish a story, then perhaps it was not worth finishing. If I have to push rather than let it flow, it won't be as good as if I take more time, mess around in the garden and try to shove the guilt deep into the compost pile. I am still a writer so long as I am thinking! — Sue Isle

Love is creative. It does not flow along the easy paths, spending itself in the attractive. It cuts new channels, goes where it is needed. — Evelyn Underhill

Nothing can be imagined, nothing can be visualized in our minds, until we have a word for it. Therefore, when I give myself to the free flow of any words that trip off my tongue without predetermination, I am tapping into the primal creative power at the heart of the cosmos. Or maybe I'm just a bullshit artist. — Dean Koontz

My hope is to continue to make new music and go with the flow. I think I'll always be creative. I want to keep making good music, put myself into positions where I need to rise to the occasion of playing in front of an audience, and continually get better at what I'm doing. — Vance Joy

Whether you plan or whether you flow in order to be creative probably isn't the point. The point is to keep practicing to maintain neural pathways and to establish new ones by learning new skills. — Philippa Perry

Jesus clearly said that you can do all that he did if you can believe, if you can center yourself in the creative flow, as he was always centered. — Eric Butterworth

I dislike frontiers, political or intellectual, and I find that ignoring them is an essential catalyst for creative thought. Ideas should flow without hindrance in their natural course. — Michael Atiyah

Write at a pace that doesn't surpass your creative flow. Don't be hasty; don't be sloppy. Don't forfeit impressive writing for an impressive word count. Because eventually it will all have to be edited, and you'll find that it is harder to make bad writing good than to make good writing better. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Forgiveness and the release of the past open the creative flow of life, supporting all levels of mind, heart, body, emotion, and spirit. This energy flow determines the state of our health, our desire to create and procreate, our willingness to develop our gifts, and how we use or deny the life force that we are given as human beings ... by choosing to let go of the past, our fears, and our negative patterns or reactions to life, we are suddenly funded with a resurgence of life force, which propels us into a newfound way of being and a very different way of understanding the world. — Jamie Sams

My creative life is a constant struggle to achieve a balance between letting things flow in and letting things flow out. — Don Henley

If you feel bored or uncomfortable as you're writing, ask yourself what's bothering you and write about that. Sometimes your creative energy is like water in a kinked hose, and before thoughts can flow on the topic at hand, you have to straighten the hose by attending to whatever is preoccupying you. — Natalie Goldberg

Release and regulate the flow of your inborn creative energy to reach your artistic potential. — Nita Leland

In this world, this life, "flow" [the times when our work or play so absorbs and attunes our energies that we lose track of time] comes to an end. The canvas is dry, the fugue is complete, the band plays the tag one more time and then resolves on the final chord. And, too, the book is finished, the service is over, the lights go up in the darkened theater and we emerge blinking into the bright lights of the "real world." But what if the timeless, creative world we had glimpsed is really the real world -- and it is precisely its reality that gave it such power to captivate us for a while? What if our ultimate destiny is that moment of enjoyment and engagement we glimpse in the artist's studio? — Andy Crouch

Scientists who study human motivation have lately learned that after basic survival needs have been met, the combination of autonomy (the desire to direct your own life), mastery (the desire to learn, explore, and be creative), and purpose (the desire to matter, to contribute to the world) are our most powerful intrinsic drivers - the three things that motivate us most. All three are deeply woven through the fabric of flow. Thus toying with flow involves tinkering with primal biology: addictive neurochemistry, potent psychology, and hardwired evolutionary behaviors. — Steven Kotler

You can have what you want- if you know how to form the mold for it in your own thoughts. There is no dream that may not come true, if you but learn to use the Creative Force working through you. The methods that work for one will work for all. The key to power lies in using what you have ... freely, fully and thus opening wide your channels for more creative force to flow through you. — Robert Collier

The relationship with actor and director is probably closer to theater, in that, when we record the dialogue, there is very little in the way of the creative collaboration - no cameras, lighting or even locations. Then, once we record, the post process is very similar to the post flow in filmmaking - editing, sound design, mixing, etc. At the end of the day, it's all about storytelling and honing in on a tone by developing a rhythm and structure that suits the storytelling. — Glenn McQuaid

Love is anything but sentimental. In fact, it is the most real and creative form of human presence. Love is the threshold where divine and human presence ebb and flow into each other. — John O'Donohue

Q: Where and when do you do your writing?
A: Any small room with no natural light will do. As for when, I have no particular schedules ... afternoons are best, but I'm too lethargic for any real regime. When I'm in the flow of something I can do a regular 9 to 5; when I don't know where I'm going with an idea, I'm lucky if I do two hours of productive work. There is nothing more off-putting to a would-be novelist to hear about how so-and-so wakes up at four in the a.m, walks the dog, drinks three liters of black coffee and then writes 3,000 words a day, or that some other asshole only works half an hour every two weeks, does fifty press-ups and stands on his head before and after the "creative moment." I remember reading that kind of stuff in profiles like this and becoming convinced everything I was doing was wrong. What's the American phrase? If it ain't broke ... — Zadie Smith

Highly creative people have a gift for connecting supposedly unrelated elements and ideas. They cross borders without regard for customs posts or No Trespassing signs. They throw suspension bridges across great distances. These elegant and unexpected combinations flow together beautifully in the twilight zone, where metaphor and resemblance rules in place of logic and classification. — Robert Moss

When you're in a creative flow with somebody - and I had this back in architecture school - you're just so passionate about what you're doing, and if that other person is just as passionate, you'll be madly in love with them. It's just that thrill of creating. — Catherine Hardwicke

This creative tension between wonderful and terrible is named so well by Gerard Manley Hopkins, as only poets can. Even the long title of his poem reveals his acceptance of the ever-changing flow of Heraclites and also his trust in the final outcome: "That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection." Flesh fade, and mortal trash fall to the residuary worm; world's wildfire, leave but ash: In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, — Richard Rohr

As individuals, we experience ourselves as the center of whatever social world we inhabit. We think that we are free and refuse to see that we are functions of our particular culture. That culture no longer organically reflects us, it is not our sum total, it is not the collective phenomenology of our creative possibilities - it possess and rules us, reduces us, obstructs the flow of sexual and creative energy and activity, penetrates even into what Freud called the id, gives nightmare shape to natural desire. — Andrea Dworkin

Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one's mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth. — Leonard E. Read

Unexplained pain may sometimes direct our attention to something unacknowledged, something we are afraid to know or feel. Then it holds us to our integrity, claiming the attention we withhold. The thing which calls our attention may be a repressed experience or some unexpressed and important part of who we are. Whatever we have denied may stop us and dam the creative flow of our lives. Avoiding pain, we may linger in the vicinity of our wounds, sometime for many years, gathering the courage to experience them. — Rachel Naomi Remen

The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance. — Eric Hoffer

A novel is a big thing. It's difficult to hold the whole story in your mind, especially when you've finished a first draft and are still giddy from the flow of creative juices. — David Macinnis Gill

The total destruction of falsehood allows authentic creative flow to happen. — Bryant McGill

This means flow packs a double punch: it doesn't just increase our decision-making abilities - it increases our creative decision-making abilities. Dramatically. — Steven Kotler

When you pray, you open yourself to the influence of the power which has revealed itself as love. The power gives you freedom and independence. Once touched by this power, you are no longer swayed back and forth by the countless opinions, ideas, and feelings which flow through you. You have found a center for your life that gives you a creative distance so that everything you see, hear, and feel can be tested against the source. — Henri Nouwen

Writer's block is as a depression in the earth. Like a river that flows into this depression for a time of rest and tranquility, eventually filling to continue its journey from the lower end of its shore line, so too shall your creative juices flow again. — Everett R. Lake

I often joke with my audiences that I make most of my income on a ski pole. People smile but they get my point. You need to make time for your genius to flow. We get our creative bursts, those idea torrents that take our business and personal lives to the next level, while we are skiing or drinking coffee in a Starbucks or walking in the woods or meditation with a sunrise. Those pursuits are not a waste of time. Creativity comes when you are relaxed, happy and enjoying the moment. And when it comes, it brings ideas that rock your world. — Robin Sharma

Your body's ability to function as a clean and efficient channel is limited by stiffness, lack of strength, and lack of endurance. Your mind's ability is limited by the way it thinks about itself, by the way you think about you. The process of yoga is one of undoing the obstructions and limitations in your body and mind that inhibit the free flow of creative life force. — Erich Schiffmann

Love makes us wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose and a flow of creative ideas. Love floods our nervous system with positive energy, making us far more attractive to prospective employers, clients, and creative partners. Love fills us with powerful charisma, enabling us to produce new ideas and new projects, even within circumstances that seem to be limited. Love leads us to atone for our errors and clean up the mess when we've made mistakes. Love leads us to act with impeccability, integrity, and excellence. Love leads us to serve, to forgive, and to hope. Those things are the opposite of a poverty consciousness; they're the stuff of spiritual wealth creation. — Marianne Williamson

Unleash your creative energy and let it flow. Relish the possibilities. — Nita Leland

Her voice wobbled, and he knew tears were a moment away. "I want it to be so amazing that no one even tries to figure out what the scars are." Trent reached over the counter and grabbed a tissue box, putting it next to her. A full-back piece, his favorite kind of tattoo. Nothing too concrete from the client, meaning he could just let his creative juices flow. That was the sweet spot where he did his best work. "It just so happens that amazing tattoos are my specialty, so no worries there."

-Trent & Harper — Scarlett Cole

Let your creative juices flow and don't be afraid to take chances! — Joel Comm

Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don't yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.
[Ten rules for writing fiction (The Guardian, 20 February 2010)] — Helen Dunmore

Creative power is that receptive attitude of expectancy which makes a mold into which the plastic yet undifferentiated substance can flow and take the desired form. — Thomas Troward

Spend more time doing things that make you forget about the time. — Charlotte Eriksson

Cognitive flexibility is an important executive function that reflects our ability to shift thinking and to produce a steady flow of creative thoughts and answers as opposed to a regurgitation of the usual responses. The trait correlates with high-performance levels in intellectually demanding jobs. So if you have an important afternoon brainstorming session scheduled, going for a short, intense run during lunchtime is a smart idea. — John J. Ratey

When your back is against the wall financially, creative juices flow. — Anita Roddick

An innovative mind allows "the creative flow" to open up for information abundance. — Pearl Zhu

Creative imagination is a mystery. If you let it flow, it will happen, & you won't know how the idea came to you. It will just materialize. — Mark Rubinstein

Developing the skill of creativity, like with any other skill, takes time. Do devote time to creativity. Honor its flow and its magic. Allow it to become your Life Force. Train Creativity daily. — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

What drove me? I think most creative people want to express appreciation for being able to take advantage of the work that's been done by others before us. I didn't invent the language or mathematics I use. I make little of my own food, none of my own clothes. Everything I do depends on other members of our species and the shoulders that we stand on. And a lot of us want to contribute something back to our species and to add something to the flow. It's about trying to express something in the only way that most of us know how-because we can't write Bob Dylan songs or Tom Stoppard plays. We try to use the talents we do have to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow. That's what has driven me. — Walter Isaacson

Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process. Enthusiasm - from the Greek, filled with God - is an ongoing energy supply tapped into the flow of life itself. — Julia Cameron

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. — Eric Maisel

I feel so fortunate to get paid to be an actor. I pinch myself. I get it from writing, I get it from baking, gardening ... I sort of open myself to the creative flow, which is hard to do, by the way. — Lauren Bowles

Do not let any record company disturb your creative flow. You are not writing for the record company. You're writing for the public. — Grandmaster Flash

So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one's days. One may be preoccupied with shopping and income tax returns and chance conversations, but the stream of the unconscious continues to flow undisturbed, solving problems, planning ahead: one sits down sterile and dispirited at the desk, and suddenly the words come as though from the air: the situations that seemed blocked in a hopeless impasse move forward: the work has been done while one slept or shopped or talked with friends. — Graham Greene

It isn't necessary to be perfect to be a channel for the universe. You just have to be real- be yourself. The more real, honest, and spontaneous you are, the more freely the creative force can flow through you. — Shakti Gawain

The love within us is meant to extend outward. The closer we grow to our inner light, we feel a natural urge to share it. We all long for meaningful work, some creative endeavor that will be our ministry, by which the energies within us might flow out to help heal the world. — Marianne Williamson

Let the juices that are stirred into new life flow at this creative bloodletting of our artistic beings. (Zoltan Galos) — Z.J. Galos

Allow some warm-up time each day to stimulate your creative flow. A pianist does keyboard exercises. A gymnast stretches. An artist needs to loosen up, too. It takes a few minutes to shift from the real world into a creative mode. — Nita Leland

We work very, very hard to find that fine line where location is meaningful enough to be interesting to an advertiser but not so intrusive that it interrupts the creative flow of the show. — David Brenner

Creativity is the foundation of wealth. All progress comes from the creative minority. Under capitalism, wealth is less a stock of goods than a flow of ideas, the defining characteristic of which is surprise. If it were not surprising, we could plan it, and socialism would work. — George Gilder

We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we're in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back form the present. That now is the creative point of life. So you see its like the idea of forgiving somebody, you change the meaning of the past by doing that ... Also watch the flow of music. The melody as its expressed is changed by notes that come later. Just as the meaning of a sentence ... you wait till later to find out what the sentence means ... The present is always changing the past. — Alan W. Watts

It is really important that focusing on things such as spelling, punctuation, grammar and handwriting doesn't inhibit the creative flow. When I was at school there was a huge focus on copying and testing and it put me off words and stories for years. — Michael Morpurgo

On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.
What does this contradictory pattern mean? There are several possible explanations, but one conclusion seems inevitable: when it comes to work, people do not heed the evidence of their senses. They disregard the quality of immediate experience, and base their motivation instead on the strongly rooted cultural stereotype of what work is supposed to be like. They think of it as an imposition, a constraint, an infringement of their freedom, and therefore something to be avoided as much as possible. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The hardest period for a writer is the period in-between writing. That's when you can go crazy if you don't allow the creative juices to flow. — Ice Cube

Talk show host Charlie Rose asked folk rocker Neil Young about following his own muse. "So if you get an idea at, say, a dinner party, if you hear a tune or a lyric, do you excuse yourself from the party?" Charlie inquired. "Of course. You never know when she'll [the muse] come again. I'm responsible to her." Sometimes, Neil would hide out in a bathroom to scratch out a song that was coming to him and return to his dinner guests after he felt he'd captured it. When you feel an idea comin' on, excuse yourself. Pull over to the side of the road. Get lost in the creative flow. Be late. Barge in. — Danielle LaPorte

Sometimes a serendipitous reaction occurs when a network asks you if you have any ideas for a series, at a time when your creative flow is working in that direction. — Joe Murray

Limitations can expand, rather than shrink, the creative flow. — Amanda Palmer

Every task is given equal importance - that way I can pick and choose my tasks based on the ebb and flow of my creative metabolism. — Sara Genn

Neglecting passion blocks creative flow. When you're passionate, you're energized. Likewise, when you lack passion, your energy is low and unproductive. Energy is everything when it comes to being successful. — Gabrielle Bernstein

In great teams, conflict becomes productive. The free flow of conflicting ideas is critical for creative thinking, for discovering new solutions no one individual would have come to on his own. — Peter Senge