QUOTE OF THE DAY: On the Ideal Conditions and Myths of Creativity [updated]

“Baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.”

- Charles Bukowski, from his 1992 poem “Air and Light and Time and Space,” which cartoonist Zen Pencils has creatively adapted for comic book. Probably while working 16-hour days in a coal mine.

UPDATE: Scientist and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov makes a similar point less poetically:

“I was once being interviewed by Barbara Walters in three segments, all at once, though they were to be run on three separate days. In between two of the segments, she asked me how many books I had written, and I told her. She said, ‘Don’t you ever want to do anything but write?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Don’t you want to go hunting? Fishing? Dancing? Hiking?’
And I said, “No! No! No! and No!’
She said, ‘But what would you do if the doctor gave you only six months to live?’
I said, ‘Type faster.'"
—Isaac Asimov from Asimov Laughs Again

[Hat tips Human Ability, Jim Matzger]