The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators QUOTES

1 " The noise around us determines how we speak. And how we listen. Just as a conversation suffers in a war zone, art suffers in a culture built on noise. So does our enjoyment of it. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

2 " Art matters. It is not simply a leisure activity for the privileged or a hobby for the eccentric. It is a practical good for the world. The work of the artist is an expression of hope - it is homage to the value of human life, and it is vital to society. Art is a sacred expression of human creativity that shares the same ontological ground as all human work. Art, along with all work is the ordering of creation toward the intention of the creator. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

3 " This kind of passionate faith can be painful. Not caring is easy. Caring hurts. Caring costs you something. But without this sort of faith, you will never create to your fullest potential. Faith is a gift. Like I've said, felt belief is not necessarily something that you choose to have or not to have. But it is a gift that you can open yourself to receive. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

4 " Capitalism tends to do to art what value meals do to cuisine. Think of what the food industry in our nation has done to our food. When dollars and cents are the sole purpose for the manufacturing and distribution of food, the food suffers. We suffer. The mass production, hormones and pesticides that have allowed the food industry to make more money have made our food less nutritious than it ever has been. Animals are treated cruelly. People get fat and sick and die. "

― Michael Gungor, , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

5 " Our cultural conditioning is so ingrained in us that we often see these customs and taboos as inherent to the fabric of the cosmos. We spiritualize them. Legalize them. And when someone else doesn't follow them, it can feel to us like an attack on our very personhood. This kind of cultural blindness affects how we order creation. "

― Michael Gungor, , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

6 " Fundamentalism is a lot like idolatry because it renders truth into something stagnant and lifeless. For the Christian fundamentalist, God becomes something that can be understood in the mind- a conceptual idol. "

― Michael Gungor, , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

7 " I used to flirt with fundamentalism, and I had this idea that creation was something that happened. Now I see creation as something happening. Hundreds of millions of stars are still being born every day. Creation is an ongoing process. The Artist has not yet cleaned out the brushes. The paint is still wet. Human beings are the small clumps of clay and breath, and we have been handed brushes of our own, like young artist apprentices. The brushes aren't ours, nor the paint or canvas, but here they are in our hands, on loan.

What shall we make? "

― Michael Gungor, , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

8 " Creator, if what you are creating has grown insipid and dull, perhaps you ought to take a step back for a moment. Before you go back to your instrument, your pen, your brush-take a breath and remember how to listen again. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

9 " Not every artist has to make a living making art. Millions of people who play guitar would do well to keep their day jobs. Plenty of people make incredible art "on the side". William Faulkner wasn't any less of an artist for writing As I lay Dying on the back of a wheelbarrow during breaks in his job shoveling coal for the electric company. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

10 " Money may be the primary standard of value in our culture, but it also has an uncanny ability to cheapen things. "

― Michael Gungor, , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

11 " The person who creates from the noise simply adds to the noise. The person who creates from a place of listening, however, can actually make something worthwhile and enjoy his work in the process. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

12 " May you, son, daughter, image of the very Creator God, fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together in your mother’s womb, fully seen, fully known, and fully loved, see with eyes that are open wide. Hear the Voice that speaks from inside of you with ears attuned and mind unshackled. Taste and see the goodness of the One who shall be all and in all. May your heart be opened to the love that formed you and everything else, the love that holds all things together and shall make all things new in the end, and may that love that was broken and poured out for you impel you into the world to break your own self open to be poured out for the world that God so loves. Poured out in acts of justice and mercy, poured out in good and hard work that brings order rather than disorder. Poured out in songs and liturgies, business plans and water colors, child-rearing and policy-making. May your life be a brush in the very hand of God—painting new creation into every nook and cranny of reality that your shadow graces. Be courageous. Be free. Prune that which needs pruning, and water that which thirsts for righteousness. You are the body of Christ, the light of the world. Pick up your hammer. Your brush. Your trumpet. Your skillet. Your pen. Lift up your head. And walk. Run. Dance. Fly. The great Artist, the future God, calls you into being. So go into your world, your valley, your garden, and create with His grace and in His peace. Amen. ________________________ "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

13 " I used to flirt with fundamentalism, and I had this idea that creation was something that happened. Now I see creation as something that is happening. Hundreds of millions of stars are still being born every day. Creation is an ongoing process. The Artist has not yet cleaned out the brushes. The paint is still wet. Human beings are the small clumps of clay and breath, and we have been handed brushes of our own, like young artist apprentices. The brushes aren't ours, nor the paint or canvas, but here they are in our hands, on loan. What shall we make? "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

14 " Faith comes from listening to the right stories. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

15 " Doubt purifies faith. Without doubt, belief calcifies into rigid fundamentalism. Without doubt, there are no questions; and without questions, there is no imagination. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

16 " Fundamentalism is rooted in arrogance. It thrives in fear and control and darkness. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

17 " Practice being fully present with something. Perhaps you may find something of God there. Go outside and look at the stars. Not for just a few seconds—lay a blanket in the yard, lie on your back and really look at the stars. Try to let your heart feel the incomprehensible size and grandeur of the universe. Take the time to really attend to a meal, a good book, a piece of music, or a sunrise. The point is to be fully present, to not be swept up into the distraction of a thousand voices, but to learn how to simply and fully attend to one. Then, when one enters back into the noisy world that we live in, even the million colors together are more vibrant because you have learned to better see color in its essence. To truly see is to find hope. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

18 " To truly see is to find hope. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

19 " Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators

20 " Entitlement is not a friend of art. Work is. Pain is. "

― , The Crowd, The Critic And The Muse: A Book For Creators