I recently finished reading Greatness: Who Makes History and Why by Dean Keith Simonton. While comedy is never actually discussed in this book, creativity and artists are and I think some of these quotes might be useful.“T.S. Eliot got depressed when he won the Nobel Prize for literature: “The Nobel is a ticket to one’s own funeral. No one has ever done anything after he got it.” (57)
“There are no shortcuts to greatness. A person who aims to achieve anything of worth must learn, study, and practice.” (68)
“Humans cannot help seeing themselves as the center of the universe, with other events and people hanging upon their actions.” (72)
“Too many fail to answer opportunity’s knock at the door because they have to finish out some preconceived plan.” (100)
“To turn out ever more original work, the artist must resort to increasingly outlandish combinations of the given materials.” (102)
““Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can,” apologized Owen Meredith.” (140)
“To attain success of the highest order, a person may have to suffer first.” (153)
“Orphanhood, especially the tragic early loss of the mother, is conducive to the development of reformers, philosophers, and religious figures in modern times.” (155)
“When we examine the general population, just two groups show orphanhood rates similar to those of the eminent – namely, juvenile delinquents, and depressive or suicidal psychiatric patients.” (155)
“Colleges that stress conformity to specified norms and dogmas, as some sectarian schools do, produce fewer of tomorrow’s innovators.” (161)
“For achievers in general, self-education often assumes the form of omnivorous reading… to have read widely is a hallmark of those who become widely read about.” (165)
“Donal Campbell said, “Persons who have been uprooted from traditional culture, or who have been thoroughly exposed to two or more cultures, seem to have an advantage in the range of hypotheses they are apt to consider, and through this means, in the frequency of creative innovation. “ (166)
“To conform to all the dictates of one’s culture is to condemn oneself to creative mediocrity. In fact, empirical studies show that creativity is linked with autonomy, or even radical anticonformity.“ (169)
“Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, “If you haven’t cut your name on the door of fame by the time you’ve reached 40, you might as well upt up your jackknife.” (180)
“Making it big is a career. People who wish to do so must organize their whole lives around a single enterprise. They must be monomaniacs, even megalomaniacs, about their pursuits. They must start early, labor continuously, and never give up the cause. Success is not for the lazy, procrastinating, or mercurial.” (181)
“Short of winning a lottery ticket, the average person should not expect a drastic improvement in his or her financial condition after the age of 40.” (198)
“Ironically, innovators themselves often become the central opponents of innovations. The difference is often one of age: The revolutionary of youth may mature into the stalwart defender of the establishment. As a consequence, advocates of novelty must expect a generation gap in the reception of their ideas.” (201)
“Robert Benchley said, “It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.” (203)
“Oliver Goldsmith said, “People seldom improve when they have no model but themselves to copy.”” (203)
“Cox found that, “high but not the highest intelligence, combined with the greatest degree of persistence, will achieve greater eminence than the highest degree of intelligence with somewhat less persistence.” (232)
“The possession of an unusual intellectual power does not guarantee success; high intelligence is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for achievement.” (232)
“Many potential geniuses twiddle their thumbs for a lifetime, waiting for something that really turns them on. Maybe the field in which they might attain greatness no longer exists, or will not exist for centuries.” (243)
“One drawback of extreme precocity is that success comes too easily. A child prodigy may thus attain a too-facile fame. This easy life does not provide adequate preparation for the struggles and frustrations of adulthood. Even the greatest geniuses must suffer many setbacks – incomplete projects, rejection slips, cancelled commissions, inept rehearsals and poor performances, scathing critiques, and the like. Accordingly, it may not be a virtue that so many child prodigies lead overly protected lives. Sooner or later, they must gain the emotional stamina and motivational endurance to survive in the rough-and-tumble world.” (243)
“Dylan Thomas once complained, “There’s only one thing that’s worse than having an unhappy childhood, and that’s having a too-happy childhood.” (243)
“We too frequently see geniuses as infallible agents, as if they had some direct conduit to truth or beauty. This commonplace image is pure myth. Creative geniuses stumble; they trip; they make horrible mistakes. Their highest and most acclaimed successes are constructed on the low rubble of humiliating failures.” (255)
“Creativity (quality) is a mere function of productivity (quantity). On the average, those periods in a creator’s career when the most products ensue are the same periods that see the most masterpieces. The quality ratio of hits to total attempts neither increases nor decreases with age.” (255)
“The most successful creators are those with the most failures. As W.H. Auden put it, “The chances are that, in the course of his lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor.”” (256)
“The willingness to take creative risks often brings with it a special knack for alienating the public. The upshot is sometimes eventful scandal and protest.” (257)
“The gregarious who fritter their time away cocktail parties, social outings, and family get-togethers are less likely to leave enduring impressions on posterity. At death, their mouths are silenced forever, while the voices of deceased introverts speak on.” (269)
“Enough Roman orgies, and the result is a large population with hangovers and sexually transmitted diseases who, worse yet, feel spiritually empty. Enough monotonous prayers in austere monastic cells, and the result is more and more souls turning away from salvation and toward the invitations of the body. Hence, when a whole civilization plunges toward one extreme type, it is just a matter of time before the pendulum will swing in the opposite direction. The oscillations will continue for as long as Homo sapiens occupies this planet.” (281)
“In the 1800’s, it was a prevailing opinion among the epxerts that genius is a mental disorder.” (285)
“Illustrious artists and scientists came form families where mental disorders were rampant – at least in comparison to pedigrees that produced less outstanding minds.” (291)
“Success is more often achieved by those disposed to be unconventional, nonconforming, antisocial, impersonal, unempathic, cold, egocentric, impulsive, aggressive, and tough-minded. This same cluster of traits points toward psychotic disorder.” (292)
“Major innovators must buck tradition to stirke out on their own. They cannot be so wrapped up in pleasing people that they loose sight of their life’s true mission. They must be persistent and self-centered to overcome the many obstacles placed in the path to greatness.” (292)
“Only a thick-skinned person can venture on new paths. It requires a big ego to stay the course while family, friends, colleagues, and critics advise the person to back off from his or her ambitions. It’s not easy to accept many bombs en route to the few hits. The mad genius has the “right stuff” in these hard conditions, but the ego of the merely mad cannot pass muster. True psychotics do not take criticism well, and withdraw quickly from a hostile world.” (293)
“Those populations that have a higher incidence of mental instability may also harbor a bigger collection of creative geniuses. Presumably, the innovations of those geniuses have enough survival value to compensate for the societal costs of dementia.” (296)
“Those whose ambitions thrust them to the top must often forfeit the dream of longevity. Positions of power and prestige are amplified sources of chronic stress as well.” (307)
“Robert Frost warned the mere technician, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.”” (309)
“Laboratory studies have shown that raising a room’s thermostat does indeed increase the aggressiveness of its occupants.” (317)
“Even those who have caught a particular news broadcast can seldom recall the key news stories of the day! Evidently, a person can sit in front of a TV set for a half hour without really processing the sights and sounds thrown toward the living room couch!”
“Genius does not appear in isolation; rather, one genius clusters with others of greater and lesser fame in adjacent generations. These clusters Kroeber called “configurations.” When a configuration reaches a crest, a Golden Age of creative activity is the result; when the configuration descends to a trough, a Dark Age occurs.” (376)
“Thus, as each generation builds upon the one before it, it attains a high point of perfection that stymies further growth. The tradition degenerates into empty imitation, as the most creative minds move on to greener pastures.” (378)
“Developing talents must assimilate models without becoming enslaved or silenced by them.” (379)
“In general, if a person has studied under a distinguished mentor, this raises the odds that the pupil also will attain distinction. Those who work directly under illustrious predecessors often launch their careers earlier and exhibit a more prolific level of output for the rest of their lives. Moreover, the teacher-pupil relationship is a two-way street. Having many intellectual offspring who are extraordinary is a good way of securing a place in the history books.” (382)
“One study examined 10,160 eminent creators, leaders, and celebrities in the history of Chinese civilization. Those periods that produced the most first-class exemplars of creativity or leadership were those that produced the most also-rans in the same domain.” (385)
“For those who wish to achieve greatness, the number of professional contacts appears more critical than the relative fame of those contacts. For example, as long as a genius takes rival seriously, that competitor can push the genius to greater heights – even though later generation may wonder about why the behemoth fussed so much about the small fry.” (387)
“The same individual may be the right person at one place and time, but the wrong person under contrasting circumstances.” (406)
“Individuals may vary, but percentages remain constant.” (413)
