This is not a pleasant route for many young people to consider. You have to be either hopelessly passionate, or very stupid.

In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative.

Confidence is a trait that has to be earned honestly and refreshed constantly; you have to work as hard to protect your skills as you did to develop them. . . The one thing that creative souls around the world have in common is that they all have to practice to maintain their skills. Art is a vast democracy of habit.

Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it's for engineers trying to solve a problem; it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way.

Obligation is a flimsy base for creativity, way down the list behind passion, courage, instinct, and the desire to do something great.

I had received my first establishment grants in response to applications filed the year before. To the pages of baffling forms I had simply attached a handwritten note saying, 'I make dances, not applications. Send the money. Love, Twyla.

The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it. Get over it.