Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Artists must constantly pursue novelty and challenge what is known or comfortable.
In plain terms
Artists should always try new things and fight the unknown.
What can you take from it?
Keep pushing boundaries instead of sticking to what works.

Where it applies

  • creative work
  • artistic critique
  • career growth

Putting it to work

  • experiment with styles
  • challenge norms
  • seek unfamiliar experiences

Questions to consider

  • What new thing have you tried recently?
  • Why do we resist the unfamiliar?

Another view

Not every artist needs to defy conventions to be valuable.

More from Brian Aldiss

  1. It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one's own creativity - that's a much tougher matter.

    Permalink to quote #60
  2. Aldiss' New Wave masterpiece is Report On Probability A. ... The minuteae of all the involved's lives are the only thing; the act of observation is the only pl…

    Permalink to quote #62
  3. I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.

    Permalink to quote #59

Related quotes

  1. Now, as discord is allowable, and even necessarily opposed to concord, why may not noise, or a seeming jargon, be opposed to fixed sounds and harmonical propor…

    Charles BurneyCharles Burney quote #2
  2. Make it new!

    Ezra PoundEzra Pound quote #4
  3. These creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer. The story of discoverers could be told in simple chro…

    Daniel J. BoorstinDaniel J. Boorstin quote #4