When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Why?
Why can't I slice it neatly and have lemon with a nice cup of hot tea, like the one I'm drinking now? A slice of lemon would go very well, I think.
Leap and the Net will appear.
Why?
Why not Leap and one of those big, yellow, rubber cushion thingy's like they show on Mythbusters when a stunt involves a person jumping from a burning building will appear? I think more people would leap if a big, yellow, rubber cushion thingy would appear. Of course, The Leaping, Big, Yellow, Rubber Cushion Thingy Blog doesn't have quite the ring to it as The Leaping Net.
I've never understood the attraction for quotes or folk sayings. Yet when I started to seriously study what it means to be creative, I found that most of the books about creativity were liberally peppered with quotes.
Why?
Some are discipline-specific, say only for painters like this;
Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. -Claude Monet
That makes sense, if that's the way you think about color. Personally, I think color is more fun than that.
Some are meant to be inspirational, I think.
The enemy of art is the absence of limitations. -Orson Welles
As someone who works best with deadlines and structure, this one makes sense to me.
Some are just plain practical.
The waste basket is the writer's best friend. -Issac Bashevis Singer
If that's not the truth, I don't know what is. Of course, I might want to update it to read "The delete key is the writer's best friend" but again it doesn't have the same ring.
Some of my favorite quotes are just passages from books and not meant to be taken as advice or inspiration. For example, this one from Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
It has been said that civilization is only twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism.
Now that to me is inspirational. But I still haven't answered my original question.
Why?
Why are quotes and similar comments so popular with creative writers, writers about creativity and other creative artist-type people? I think I've finally figured out the answer. Compare quotes and such to the popular books about ingesting poultry-infused broth for the [insert some demographic cohort here] spirit. Now look at the size of the average quote.
Quotes are the multivitamin of the creative spirit, short and memorable they act as a nudge towards the keyboard, the easel, the loom. So the next time that you see a quote, scribble it down and the next time you need a nudge, a little push, a swift kick in the ass, look at the quotes you've saved and know that you are not alone in your efforts to bring beauty into the world.
Don't stop there. How about some quotes about quotes?
ReplyDelete"He wrapped himself in quotations- as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of an emperor." -Kipling
I wonder the context of that one. It could support your above conclusion. Or, it could support the following quote:
"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. "W. Somorset Maugham
That one's too funny not to include.
I, too, keep a file of quotes, on my computer of course. My latest addition came from Bird By Bird. Thanks for the loan!
I have a favorite from Bird By Bird, too.
ReplyDelete"Sometimes you'll sit down or go walking and your thoughts will be on one aspectof your work, or one idea you have for a small scene, or a general portait of one of the characters you are working with, or you'll be completely blocked and hopeless and wondering why you shouldn't just go into the kitchen and have a nice glass of warm gin straight out of the cat dish." Hate gin. Hate cats. Love that line.
I love the idea of collecting quotes that are meaningful to me, but I also tend to incorrectly assume that I'll remember where I saw a good one so I can go back and retrieve it "later." Bad assumption - much better to grab 'em when you see 'em.
ReplyDelete