The germ of an idea doesn't make the sculpture that stands up... so the next stage is hard work

You yourself are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you almost don't exist. I've experienced this time and again. My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening. I just sit there watching in a state of awe and wonderment. And it just flows out by itself.

Attention is psychic energy, and like physical energy, unless we allocate some part of it to the task at hand, no work gets done.

Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness.

If I had to express in one word what makes their [creative individuals'] personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an "individual," each of them is a "multitude."

Unless a person knows how to give order to her thoughts, attention will be attracted to whatever is most problematic at the moment.

Optimal experience is that rare occasion when we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like.