Ben Nicholson Quotes

I love the rush of being creative. I really think I live for it.

I've always felt that there's a point where a piece seems to be alive, that is, living. And that's the point where I know the composition is finished.

I always wonder what drives us as Artists.

When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

If you're an actor in your heart, no matter how much money they shove at you, it doesn't matter if the work doesn't provide that creative spark. You want out.

If I'm in something that I think is kinda good, it stays with me like a fever dream for a long time afterwards. I don't recall the finished product so much as the feeling of making it.

There are times when I've inhaled my work. There are artworks still inside of me.

If the script doesn't excite me, there's no point working on the music.

Even if you're not releasing songs, the act of creativity is important. That's the part I love, when you're in the moment. The rest of it I'm not particularly interested in at all.

It is essential for artistes to have that release of creativity, almost as necessary as eating food or drinking water.

Success is being artistically fulfilled and happy. You can't control how people see your movie or how much money it makes...and the same thing with music. When I'm writing a song or I'm in the studio, those memories, that's epic.

True artists are almost the only men who do their work for pleasure.

Whatever it is that I thirst for in my current project tends to turn up in my following project.

I think good artists know when they're on a roll, and they recognize when lightning is striking. It's a very fortunate thing to have that inspiration and not to overanalyze it or mess with it; you just follow it if you love what you do.

Sometimes I can see the whole painting from the outset in my mind's eye. But more often than not, that idea doesn't last the duration of the painting. Sometimes it comes out easy, just as I had envisaged. But that is reasonably rare.

The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts.

You can never tell when an artist really will take up someone's work and work with it happily.

Usually, I create tunes that are fragmented. I think the biggest obstacle for people with their creativity is that they feel they have to sit down and create this finished, polished product.

One of the things you're doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right.

I have let half-decades elapse between books because books have to be writte and writing is awful, but if you are the type of person who makes things, there is no profit in worrying about how or why or when the next project will come into being beyond simply acknowledging that it is inevitable that it will be very soon.

Being at the genesis of the creative process is definitely something I want to keep doing. It's just such a great buzz.

Music is a big influence in my work and sometimes drives the energy of where I want to go.

Every mind which has given itself to self-expression in art is aware of a directing agency outside its conscious control which it has agreed to label 'inspiration'.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.