If you work on your creativity, you deepen your spirituality. And if you work on your spirituality, you deepen your creativity.

Creativity makes life useful to us. It also makes us useful to life.

A sketch book freezes time. It is an instantaneous form of meditation focusing us on the worth of every passing moment.

Perfectionism doesn't believe in practice shots. It doesn't believe in improvement. Perfectionism has never heard that anything worth doing is worth doing badly--and that if we allow ourselves to do something badly we might in time become quite good at it. Perfectionism measures our beginner's work against the finished work of masters. Perfectionism thrives on comparison and competition. It doesn't know how to say, "Good try," or "Job well done." The critic does not believe in creative glee--or any glee at all, for that matter. No, perfectionism is a serious matter.

Next to Morning Pages and Artist Dates, the most potent tool for contacting inner guidance and creativity is walking.

when I talk about a writing life, I'm talking about a life in which writing is the dominant response to living.

But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano / act / paint / write a decent play?" Yes . . . the same age you will be if you don't.