"The refusal to rest content, the willingness..." - Quote by John Updike
The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.
More by John Updike
More on Artists
“No work of art ever puts forward views. Views belong to people who are not artists.”
“No artist will tolerate the world for one second as it is.”
“There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.”
More on Creativity
“Only in our creative acts do we step forth into the light and see ourselves whole and complete.”
“Artists must be sacrificed to their art.”
“The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.”