Creative Surrender Quotes

I never control a film. The film controls me.

You put a piece of music out, and it's not in your hands anymore, and that's cool with me.

When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly than he knew, Rembrandt's brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend. When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.

In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty...in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.

Over the years, with all the experience, I've become more mature about the subjects I pick. I have a better understanding of what works at the box office. Once the story is finalised, I surrender to the director and follow him. After that, my performances speak for themselves.

Music has its own depths, and I let it take me where it takes me, even if it means stripping all my clothes off.

It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

I would go fifty miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his Author's hands; be pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.

It's funny when you write a song - it's easy for me now - but there's almost a second stage where you take control of the song. You start writing it, and if you're not careful, it just finishes itself and it might not be what you wanted. It's very strange, it takes over itself. It has its own life.

There's a kind of chemical spark that comes sometimes with the character, that you don't even have to think about how she is reacting, you just let yourself go. You just let the character take you, instead of taking the character.

You must lose yourself if you want to be successful in animation and be the character.

You know as a director what you want, but the film is smarter than you, the film says no, the film says there's something more here.

I'm a director's actor, and I surrender myself to the vision and the process. I think nothing else matters then.

I think attempting to make art is a utopian process in itself, definitely. Nothing I do is ever equal to the ideas in my head. You do the best you can, you do it with patience and love, and then you give up. The moment you give up is when you know the book is done.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

I think I've had a lot of experience with watching other people shepherd my ideas with the 'Saw' films. They made four 'Saw' movies without me. I never really had a protective or fierce policy towards that. I let it go.

I have been enlightened. I have fallen into poetry and it has swallowed me up.

After a song comes out, it doesn't remain yours.

When you agree to work with a filmmaker, it's important that you accept their world. It's an adventure. I like that. I throw myself into the director's arms, into their universe.

With music, you can portray a certain thing, but in film, sometimes you have to let yourself go to a point where that can be attractive to a person, that you're willing to let yourself go that much. It works both ways.

Art is nothing but the expression of our dream; the more we surrender to it the closer we get to the inner truth of things, our dream-life, the true life that scorns questions and does not see them.

A picture is like a prayer; you're offering a prayer to get something, and in a sense it's like a gift of God because you have practically no control-at least I don't.

When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.

As a screenwriter, you have to let go, and you have to hand your baby over and let it go off into the world, which is entirely appropriate.