You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.
Billie HolidayRead
One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the sudden burst of creativity and inspiration that can lead to great artistic expression.
Billie Holiday's quote conveys the idea that inspiration can strike unexpectedly, resulting in a complete creative work coming together effortlessly. This moment of clarity, where everything aligns, is something many artists experience, suggesting that creativity often involves both hard work and serendipitous moments of insight.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the creative process during an art workshop.
You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.
I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.
I joined Count Basie's band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn't see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter.
Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.
If each photograph steals a bit of the soul, isn't it possible that I give up pieces of mine every time I take a picture?
Painting picture by picture, I followed the impressions my eye took in at heightened moments. I painted only memories, adding nothing, no details that I did not see. Hence the simplicity of the paintings, their emptiness.
Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance!
Though it may not seem like it, I never try to write about a place, per se; it's always, first and last, about story. Story is everything. Story and a bit of attitude.
I knew from the age of five what I wanted to do. The one thing I could do was draw. I couldn't draw that much better than some of the other kids, but I cared more and I wanted it badly.
One of the beauties of art is that it reflects an artist's entire life. What I've learned over the past 30 years is really beginning to inform what I make. I hope that process continues until I die.
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