All the stuff I love most in game storytelling is never the big-picture stuff; it's the stuff that feels like curlicues, stuff that's just there because it's a game and because you can do it.
Tom BissellRead
To create anything — whether a short story or a magazine profile or a film or a sitcom — is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic. These essays are about that magic — which is sometimes perilous, sometimes infectious, sometimes fragile, sometimes failed, sometimes infuriating, sometimes triumphant, and sometimes tragic. I went up there. I wrote. I tried to see.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Creating art involves a belief in one's own power to transform ideas into reality, embracing both the struggles and triumphs of the creative process.
This quote by Tom Bissell reflects on the enchanting and complex journey of creation, where the act of bringing something into existence invites a sense of wonder and belief in one's magical capabilities. It acknowledges the varying emotions and challenges artists face, from moments of brilliance to feelings of failure, while recognizing the intimate relationship between the creator and their craft.
Themes
CreationMagicArtCreativityChallenges
In practice
Example use cases
In an inspirational speech to aspiring writers at a workshop.
More from Tom Bissell
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My goal is for 'Heavy Rain' to leave an imprint in you and change a little bit of who you are and how you see things. Maybe the key characters and key moments will leave a trace in you. If you don't have this ambition as a video-game creator, then maybe you should do something else, because this is what creation and art is about.
David CageRead
Photographers usually want to photograph facts and things. But I'm interested in the nature of the thing itself. A photograph of someone sleeping tells me nothing about their dream state; a photograph of a corpse tells me nothing about the nature of death. My work is about my life as an event, and I find myself to be very temporal, transient.
Duane MichalsRead
I was scared to do anything in the studio because it felt so claustrophobic. I wanted to be somewhere where things could happen and the subject wasn't just looking back at you.
Annie LeibovitzRead
To me, music is a river. I have lived my life beside the river. Every day, I get up and look at the river. I watch it and notice when it rises and falls.
Clarence ClemonsRead
The art of tomorrow will be a collective treasure, or it will not be art at all.
Victor VasarelyRead
Literary studies were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection. Even movies, which I love more than anything, more than life itself, they even do it with movies these days.
Stephen FryRead