Creativity can replace conformity as the primary mode of social being. . . . We can cling to that which is passing, or has already passed, or we can remain accessible to-even surrender to-the creative process, without insisting that we know in advance the ultimate outcome for us, our institutions, or our planet. To accept this challenge is to cherish freedom, to embrace life, and to find meaning.

There is not ultimate breakthrough; what we find in the development of a creative life is an open-ended series of provisional breakthroughs. In this journey there is no endpoint, because it is the journey into the soul.

There are only people doing their imperfect best at doing their imperfect jobs

As an improvising musician, I am not in the music business, I am not in the creativity business; I am in the surrender business.

Play, intrinsically rewarding, doesn't cost anything; as soon as you put a price on it, it becomes, to some extent, not play.

Writing, playing, composing, painting, reading, listening, looking-all require that we submit to being swept away by Eros, to a transformation of self of the kind that happens when we fall in love.

The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.