Creativity is always intense.

I think one of the most important things for creativity is boredom.

Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.

This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If just you keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious.

Creativity is not the possession of some special talent. It’s about the willingness to play.

We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode.

High creativity is responding to situations without critical thought.

Laughter is the best creative medicine.

Creativity is not an ability that you either have or do not have. It is, for example, and this may surprise you, absolutely unrelated to IQ, provided you're intelligent above a certain minimal level.

I have several times made a poor choice by avoiding a necessary confrontation.

To be creative you must create a space for yourself where you can be undisturbed... separate from everyday concerns.

If you are leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time for considering alternative strategies... Do it in the 'closed' mode. But the moment the action is over, try to return to the 'open' mode... because in that mode we are the most aware, most receptive, most creative, and therefore at our most intelligent.

Nothing will stop you being creative more effectively as the fear of making a mistake.

Telling people how to be creative is easy - being creative is difficult.

While you're being creative, nothing is wrong. There's no such thing as a mistake, and any drivel may lead to the breakthrough.

The most creative people have learned to tolerate the slight discomfort of indecision for much longer and so, just because they put in more pondering time, their solutions are more creative.

It's easier to be creative if you've got other people to play with.

The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.

The daimonic is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person. Sex and eros, anger and rage, and the craving for power are examples. The daimonic can be either creative or destructive and is normally both.

Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act.

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

Dogmatism of all kinds--scientific, economic, moral, as well as political--are threatened by the creative freedom of the artist. This is necessarily and inevitably so. We cannot escape our anxiety over the fact that the artists together with creative persons of all sorts, are the possible destroyer of our nicely ordered systems. (p. 76)

Creative people... are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of 'divine madness,' to borrow the term used by the classical Greeks.

Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.