Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

As far back as I remember, long before I could write, I had played at making stories. But not until I was seven or more, did I begin to pray every night, "O God, let me write books! Please, God, let me write books!"

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

Being in this fine mood, I spoke to a little boy, whom I saw playing alone in the road, asking him what he was going to be when he grew up. Of course I expected to hear him say a sailor, a soldier, a hunter, or something else that seems heroic to childhood, and I was very much surprised when he answered innocently, 'A man.'

Wishing is the beginning of imagination. They practice wishing when they are young things, and then -when they have grown - they have a developed imagination. Which can do some harm - greed, that kind of thing - but more often does them some good. They can imagine that things might be different. Might be other than they seem. Could be better.

Like a heartbeat. Something inside me. Some dream. I think it's being a dreamer as a child. Dreamy kids become actors, don't they?

I always wanted to write poetry, even when I was very young.

I thought of myself as a writer for years before I got around to writing anything.

The ideas aren't that important. Really they aren't. Everyone's got an idea for a book, a movie, a story, a TV series.

All men are creative but few are artists.

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.

I think of myself as a songwriter, a weaver of story and imagination in a way that a novelist might write a book.

A friend of mine who writes history books said to me that he thought that the two creatures most to be pitied were the spider and the novelist - their lives hanging by a thread spun out of their own guts. But in some ways I think writers of fiction are the creatures most to be envied, because who else besides the spider is allowed to take that fragile thread and weave it into a pattern? What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it to create some semblance of order.

I only can write a book every two years, you know. And I write very fast, but I'm not always writing every day. I needed a contact with different things, like nature, for example. I cannot be in front of a computer trying to tell a story.

Every book is a kind of experiment in doing something that feels impossible.

Did you ever build a castle in the Air? Here is one, brought down to earth and fixed for the wonder of ages.

Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.

The imagination is the workshop of the soul, where are shaped all the plans for individual achievement.

On the spectrum of imagination, there are people who are more imaginative than others - I guess some kids are hardcore pretenders and have imaginary friends for years and other kids play and they have fun, but it's not quite as specific like that.

Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

Most of my books begin with an image or a voice - one small thing - and I don't know what it is going to become.

Growing up and being a kid, I knew that creativity was at the heart of what I wanted to do. I always had this feeling of wanting to be a comedian and wanting to be an actor.

If you really want you people to innovate, buy a science fiction book, tear off the covers, and tell them it's history.

Yes. Growing up is highly overrated. Just be an author.

In literature, you know only what you imagine