# Quote — Will Gompertz, Think Like an Artist

> She pointed up to a shelf of plates stacked vertically in a rack above the sink. “Choose one,” she said. I must have looked nonplussed. “Choose a plate,” she repeated. And then explained that she collects plates, but only ever one of any type. It was up to the guest to decide which one would be theirs for the duration of the stay. “We’re not robots,” she said. “Life is more exciting when you have an opinion.”

- Author: [Will Gompertz](https://www.leafyquotes.com/will-gompertz.md)
- Book: [Think Like an Artist](https://www.leafyquotes.com/will-gompertz/think-like-an-artist.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Will_Gompertz#Think_Like_an_Artist_(2015)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/will-gompertz/think-like-an-artist/she-pointed-up

## More from this book

> Duchamp is a worthy role model. Added to which he believed passionately that anyone could be an artist and spent his life showing the rest of us how it is done. He chose fine art as the vehicle for his imagination, but his approach could equally well be applied to any area of creative endeavor.
>
> His trick was to spend more time thinking than doing. He would pause for thought and ponder on life and creativity and how things might be. Which is what I’m going to do now.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/will-gompertz/think-like-an-artist/duchamp-is-a-worthy.md)

> It is, after all, our imagination that makes us human. Vincent van Gogh asked, “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” To which the answer is, I would have thought, boring, bordering on pointless.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/will-gompertz/think-like-an-artist/it-is-after.md)

> Creativity, like society, thrives when the individual elements fit within, and add to, a bigger picture.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/will-gompertz/think-like-an-artist/creativity-like-society.md)