When you feel yourself to be in critical condition, you must treat yourself as gently as you would a sick friend.

When we survey our lives, seeking to fulfil our creativity, we often see we had a dream that went glimmering because we believed, and those around us believed, that the dream was beyond our reach.

In recovering from our creative blocks, it is necessary to go gently and slowly... These are baby steps. Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.

The beginner's humility and openness lead to exploration. Exploration leads to accomplishment. All of it begins at the beginning, with the first small and scary step.

By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

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.

Art is born in attention.