Robert Fritz Quotes

When you merely choose a process, you do not establish structural tension, and you do not make energy available to complete the creative process.

We don’t make art because we need it. We make it because we love it. The love artists have is generative, not responsive. Romantic love is responsive. You meet and then you fall in love. The situation first, the love second. But for the artist, the love predates the situation. The filmmaker loves the film before the film is made. The painter loves the painting before paint touches canvas. The choreographer loves the dance before it exists. To do what we need to do is not special. After all, we need to do it. But to do what we do not need to do is special. To the artist, to make art is one of the most special things one can do in life.

Once a structure exists, energy moves through that structure by the path of least resistance. In other words, energy moves where it is easiest for it to go.

You can get rid of all your problems and still not have what you want.

One basic principle found throughout nature is this: Tension seeks resolution. From the spider web to the human body, from the formation of galaxies to the shifts of continents, from the swing of pendulums to the movement of wind-up toys, tension-resolution systems are in play.

You love your child for who the child is, not as an extension of your identity or as an example of your good parenting or even as a companion.

It's not what the vision is, it's what the vision does.

Often, the person reaches a point where there is a choice between two conflicting interests: reducing the emotional discomfort or seeing what is really going on. The person needs to make a value choice at this point. Which is more important to you, seeing reality or feeling okay? Almost always, the person chooses to see reality, and therefore, to let the emotional chips fall wherever they may.

You got to where you are in your life right now by moving along the path of least resistance.

You can shift to another structure that will support you in creating the results you want, but never from the motivation of ridding yourself of structural conflict. Why? Because creating is different from solving or eliminating.

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable,
you disconnect yourself from what you truly want,
and all that is left is compromise.

What motivates a creator? The desire for the creation to exist. A creator creates in order to bring the creation into being. People in the reactive-responsive orientation often have trouble understanding this sensibility: to create for the sake of the creation itself. Not for the praise, not for the “return on investment,” not for what it may say about you, but for its own sake.

What is wrong with positive thinking? In a word — truth.

It is natural for us to avoid pain and conflict. So, seeking the truth is not something we do by nature. It is a discipline, and like every discipline, is not natural. As we build our life as art, one discipline we will need to master is fluency in reality. We need to know exactly how it is. We will need to raise our level of objectivity, discernment, and awareness.