Vanity and narcissism — the compulsive need to be admired and praised — undermine one's courage, for one then fights on someone else's conviction rather than one's own.

Everyone has a need for significance; and if we can't make that possible, or even probable, in our society, then it will be obtained in destructive ways.

The creative act arises out of the struggle of human beings with and against that which limits them.

Creativity is a yearning for immortality

We cannot will to have insights. We cannot will to have creativity, but we can will to give ourselves to the creative experience with intensity of dedication and commitment.

Our thesis is that symbols and myths are an expression of man's unique self-consciousness, his capacity to transcend the immediate concrete situation and see his life in terms of 'the possible,' and that this capacity is one aspect of his experiencing himself as a being having a world.

All people are struggling to be creative in some way, and the artist is the one who has succeeded in this task of life.