46. Inside my swipe file: Quotes about creativity to inspire your day
A collection of creative words of wisdom to help you through your next project
Having spent the past year writing about creativity for this here newsletter, Shannon and I have come across dozens of many good phrases, ideas, and definitions for creativity. People are so smart! And they have such a good way with words.
We’ve shared quite a few of these words and ideas with you in past articles. (A favorite of mine: Creativity is the intersection of novelty and impact.) But would you believe, almost fifty articles into this newsletter, there are still waaaay more things that we haven’t shared?
Today, I wanted to open up my personal swipe file of inspiring quotes, brilliant visuals, super cool graphics, and wondrous miscellany that helps ground my creative practice and motivate me to create new things.
Speaking of swipe files, do you keep one, too?
Yours may go by a different name, but I bet you’re familiar with the idea. Swipe files come from the content world—specifically marketers and advertisers—who keep collections of cool campaigns, copywriting, and websites that they can use for inspiration later. Basically we marketers took a bookmarks folder and rebranded it as a swipe file. (Technically, the first use of a swipe file was a bit more lo-fi, from copywriter Gary Halbert in the 1970s who saved hundreds of advertising headlines on 3x5 index cards.)
A swipe file is close cousins with some of these other well-known inspiration systems:
Spark file
Tickler file
Moodboard
Digital garden
Knowledge library
Second brain
I keep my swipe file in a few different places: my browser bookmarks, some Pinterest boards, a new app called Sublime (let me know if you’d like an invite), and—yes, dinosaurically— the occasional sticky note.
Here are some of the quotes, ideas, and visuals that have been inspiring me lately. Feel free to swipe ‘em for your own inspiration and motivation!
Inside my swipe file
"I dwell in possibility."
~ Emily Dickinson
“If you give freely, there will always be more.”
~ Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
This quote is in reference to writer’s block, how emptying your writer’s mind is a way to fill it back up. Not only that, but I also see it as encouragement for an overall mindset of generosity.
"Attention is the beginning of devotion."
~ Mary Oliver
There is great power in noticing. And noticing, once I give myself permission and time to do it, is pretty easy to do.
A good reminder that it’s okay to put something out into the world. There is enough space to go around!
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye
This is one of my very favorite poems. It helps keep me calm whenever I feel tempted to try too hard or compare myself to others. It helps put fame into perspective.
“On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something.”
~ Austin Kleon, Show Your Work
I love this as a reminder that my creative point of view matters, and my work—in the midst of the chaos—can be loved and seen by the people who love me and see me.
"You travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.”
~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The idea of searching and returning is a comforting one for my creative practice. And also, this is one of those great quotes that I am afraid to think about for too long because I’m scared I’ll spoil it.
“You can’t talk butterfly language with caterpillar people.”
~ Trish Deseine, author
Pairs nicely with: “If you are too much for some people, then those are not your people.”
A poem by Shel Silverstein, from the 1980s, which roughly translates to the 2020s as “shut out the haters.”
"I think you just have to work hard for about 10 years before you know what you’re doing."
~ Ben Chestnut, CEO Mailchimp
Some days I don’t feel like I can last for 10 years, but it’s good to know that everyone who seems like they know what they’re doing didn’t arrive there overnight. So it’s okay if I don’t have things figured out yet.
This image is from a 404 error page, and yet I find it rather fun and inspiring because, depending on my mood, it inspires me to be really curious and stick my nose into things that interest me or to be really focused and stick my nose deep into my work.
(On my less-good days, it makes me think about burying my head in the sand. Quite the Rorschach test, right?)
"We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down."
- Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut could’ve been a startup tech CEO!
"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
~ Dorothy Parker
“I have never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do it.”
~ Pippi Longstocking
This quote may get me in trouble more often than not, but I love the spirit behind bravely going forth into new activities with the self-belief that you can figure things out.
"Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."
~ Charles Mingus
“The stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act.”
~ Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus
A helpful reminder that stupid is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged!
I often think of this when I’m giving encouragement to others. Sometimes I need this to give encouragement to myself.
“Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
~ Howard Thurman
What a nice reminder for a very simple formula!
It’s not about the tools I use. (Although I do really love a good notebook!)
"You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
~ Maya Angelou
"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."
~ Oscar Wilde
Sometimes I can let my creative work become a very serious thing, so it’s nice knowing that things can be important without always needing to be serious.
So much of mastery lies beneath the surface.
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
~ Anais Nin
"Believe you can, and you're halfway there."
~ Theodore Roosevelt
This is one of the more inexplicable images in my swipe file, but believe it or not, this serves as a reminder for me not to overthink things—creativity OR cookies. Once the beads of sweat start forming on my brow, either literally or figuratively, I need to take a breather.
"Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew."
~ Jack Gilbert
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see."
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
I definitely don’t consider myself a genius, but it’s nice to know their secret: Embrace the uncommon thing.
"Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not."
~ Pablo Picasso
It’s okay to have a high bar! And sure, perfectionism is a whole ‘nother can of worms, but I like the reminder that my creative output can be everything I dreamed it to be.
"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes—including you."
~ Anne Lamott
Pairs well with the advice to “Never Settle.” Never settle, but also give yourself plenty of breaks because good things take time.
"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write."
~ Saul Bellow
While not technically true for me, this advice is spot on with the idea of leaning into your intuition.
"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a daily basis."
~ Margaret Bonanno
"The best way out is always through."
~ Robert Frost
Over to you
Do any of these quotes or images resonate with you? Where you do you store your mementos for inspiration (and can we see a couple favorites)?
Let us know in the comments or by hitting reply!
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