James Turrell Quotes

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

People ask, like, 'How are you going to incorporate what you do onstage into everything else?' I'm not too worried about that. Whether it's theater or a TV show idea, or an animated thing or, I don't know, an animated screensaver. I really just want to keep creating things. And I've always been able to do that.

Making music and writing kind of come from the same creative place.

The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.

After writing all day I go for a walk and see a piece of architecture i want to photograph and i have to take a picture and later a poem comes in my mind.

I think that in the process of writing, all kinds of unexpected things happen that shift the poet away from his plan and that these accidents are really what we mean when we talk about poetry.

Now begins to rise in me the familiar rhythm; words that have lain dormant now lift, now toss their crests, and fall and rise, and falls again. I am a poet, yes. Surely I am a great poet.

I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being.

I'm not like a professional writer with professional skills. Songs kind of come into my head the same way they did when I was a kid. I say I'm an overgrown kindergarten kid. I work on songs.

Working with language requires beauty for me.

Whenever I'm out and I hear something, I'm writing. It's the process of writing it down and then just always creating wherever you go. I never stop creating.

What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lonely-heart poetry readings I have dodged, is beside the point. A man's soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.

I was a very creative child. I played the saxophone and piano, and I was always writing poetry and stories, or drawing in my notebook. I just tried to express myself through as many creative outlets as possible. And in high school, I started to get really into photography and videography and would spend hours working on it.

When I make a film, I don't watch a lot of other films. I read a lot; I try to read poems, things that can liberate my human condition, that make me go away... I spend a lot of the time doing nothing, just concentrating on the subject. Sometimes I'll sit in my chair for two or three hours without doing anything.

Art and life are inseparable.

Artists make our lives livable and enjoyable.

We are often celebrating technology and codes, but we don't really think about the creative side.

I want to involve creativity more in technology and business. It is obvious that for us to be successful, a healthy relationship with creativity is needed.

A writer is an artist. They're creating things out of thin air.

Life and art are inseparable.

I'm a fan of creative writing and telling stories.

When you compose, it's like writing. You're like a writer. You just think all the time.

An orchestra can add some class, a historical vibe, but I believe you can get the same emotion from pottery wheels.

The best way to write a song is to think of something else and then the song kind of creeps in.

The stressful time is the blank page at the beginning. When you're starting to see things being made flesh, and you're able to respond to that flesh, that's really exciting.