Elizabeth Gilbert

Explores attitudes, approaches, and habits needed to live a creative life.

Creative Living Beyond Fear

Big Magic

Abigail Schreider

Keira 💫

"Experiences taught me to be careful of meeting my heros in person, it can be terribly disappointing. Anyway, I quite liked the way he lived inside my imagination, as a massive and powerful presence, built our of his poems and the stories I'd heard about him. So I decided to know him only that way, through my imagination."

"The universe buries strange jewels within us all, then stands back to see if we can find them."

Erika Larson

No, when I refer to “creative living,” I am speaking more broadly. I’m talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear. 

Mara D Alo Fonseca

I think perfectionism is just a high-end, haute couture version of fear. I think perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it's just terrified. Because underneath that shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more than a deep existential angst that says, again and again, “I am not good enough and I will never be good enough." Perfectionism is a particularly evil lure for women. who, I believe, hold themselves to an even higher standard of performance than do men. There are many reasons why women's voices and visions are not more widely represented today in creative fields. Some of that exclusion is due to regular old misogyny, but it's also true that-all too-women are the ones holding themselves back from participating in the first place. Holding back their ideas, holding back their contributions, holding back their leadership and their talents. Too many women still seem to believe that they are not allowed to put themselves forward at all, until both they and their work are perfect and beyond criticism. 

Big Magic quotes

Join the club