Prince Quotes

I sometimes don't try to invent something. I wait for some kind of a direction - and it happens. I get an angle, for instance, and it just appears, and I say, 'Oh my God - that's it!'

I believe sometimes we aren't always in charge of everything that we do creatively. We submit to things as we're going on our own journey.

The toughest question has always been, "How do you get your ideas?" How do you answer that? It's like asking runners how they run, or singers how they sing. They just do it!

What a fine line there is between artistry and insanity. There's no formula for it, and I think a lot of people when they're around you - even those closest to you - when you're in that whirl of creativity and you're grabbing those things out of the air, there's no rational process.

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.

I'm very interested to see how this new painting will go - I know I want it big and stark, and as I said, I follow the muse, and that's when it always works perfectly for me.

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

Trying to force creativity is never good.

The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.

I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.

In general, I don't know when inspiration will pop up.

For most people, creativity is a serious business. They forget the telling phrase 'the play of ideas' and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to play.

As I get on and films take four years to complete, I tend to have a hankering for very short projects so you can move on to the next idea. It's the ideas I'm interested in. What comes out of your head.

I don't know how to explain it, but when you're working on something constantly, and you're digging in deep, things kind of fall in, and you grab them, and you're like, 'That one!' and 'That thing!' and it starts to build something right.

You can't rush inspiration.

Something will come to me in the middle of the day, and I'll Voice Note it so I don't forget how I felt when the idea came about. I can hear the feeling I had when I first recorded it.

You can't slot a time and a space and think 'ok now it's time to sit and compose.' It just doesn't work like that for me.

Any one thing can get in the way of you and your brain being comfortable and being inspired. It's the difference between a really big song and a song that never existed.

There are some projects where you have to just start doing it, and, after a while, the show starts telling you what it wants to be. You put your spirit in and, after a while, something bigger takes over, and it turns out to be much more fun and creative than what it was at the beginning.

Not all ideas are like a twinkling star in the sky, and you get inspired to make a record the next day.

The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you.

I imagine that when I am creating a song or a project or an album or putting some clothing together or cooking a meal, whatever it is, I don't really have a recipe. The fun part is to throw that big piece of clay in the middle of the table as hard as I can, and whatever shape it takes, that's what shape it takes, and then I start to carve away.

My discussion with Keith Richards about the creative process led me to believe that there's an invisible presence of a stream of ever-flowing creativity that we overhear-all you have to do is pull up the antenna and dial it in. This presence allows you to maintain your sense of origin and move forward.

I think it's really important to not talk about how you're going to release something until you've finished it. People are like, "What are we going to make? What are we going to do with it?" and it's just like, "I don't know, we're just making music. Then we'll talk." You can't always write something you're happy with; you can't force it.