By making the start of the sequence automatic, they replace doubt and fear with comfort and routine.

As people who have commitments and obligations, we try to blockade emotions and go on our course towards excellence, and that's a lie. I've definitely paid a price. Everything is an exchange.

The content and thematic materials of dance is, of itself, like boxing. You play tennis and baseball. But boxing is not a sport you play: you stand up and do it.

You don't get into the mood to create – it's discipline.

It takes skill to bring something you've imagined into the world: to use words to create believable lives, to select the colors and textures of paint to represent a haystack at sunset, to combine ingredients to make a flavorful dish. No one is born with that skill. It is developed through exercise, through repitition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time. . . . If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.

I have to feel that each thing I've learned I can push to another point next time. I'm not very good with repetition. I would rather not work than feel that repetition is the order of the day.

In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative.....A lot of habitually creative people have preparation rituals linked to the setting in which they choose to start their day. By putting themselves into that environment, they begin their creative day.