I am actually NOT a good person to make any reading list, because I am not an avid reader. As the most performed playwright in the Chinese speaking world, the fuel for my over 40 plays comes from life itself, not by books about art/creativity. To be creative, you need to be inspired by life, to see how great works of art are composed, including nature. To understand life you need to focus intensely on it and observe how it works in as objective a way as possible. It’s great to find a book about creativity that will help your creativity, but I find life itself is the greatest inspiration.
I have treasured this book since college days, as a concise summary of the truth of existence.
That’s a lot to say, but try it. Eternal truths are so simple! Yet so profound! I was blown away by the first line – a book with its topic as “the Tao” says that if you can explain it, it’s not it! Then why did he write the xxx thing?
Ah, only through time can I start understanding. I feel this precious book gives me an anchor to view the world, life, people.
“Like the eternal void filled with infinite possibilities,” Lao Tzu is the master of oxymoron. He is tricky, challenging, cool. Sooo creative. Nothing I have ever done even approaches his toes. He doesn’t need to talk about creativity. He IS creativity.
The bestselling, widely acclaimed translation from Stephen Mitchell
"Mitchell's rendition of the Tao Te Ching comes as close to being definitive for our time as any I can imagine. It embodies the virtues its translator credits to the Chinese original: a gemlike lucidity that is radiant with humor, grace, largeheartedness, and deep wisdom." — Huston Smith, author of The Religions of Man
In eighty-one brief chapters, Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, provides advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit, and teaches us how to work for the good with the effortless skill…
“What is this?” I asked myself on first reading. “Fiction?”
Each short piece contained a moving story that was like a jewel to view and think about, but something was strange, in a wondrous way. It seemed like fiction posing as journalism, like the great classical Chinese tale “A Record of the Peach Blossom Land” by Tao Yuanming (6th century) that inspired my most popular play.
It upended my concept of short story, and of art, opening doors to ways of writing. “Fiction in disguise.” Astonishingly creative, yet peaceful and profound. Wildly creative themes and twists narrated by a quiet objective voice. Maestro Borges taught me that you can shock an audience through very calm narrative, and how profound creativity starts with format.
A master class in creativity that ends with compassion.
The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the gargantuan powers of imagination, intelligence, and style of one of the greatest writers of this or any other century.
Borges sends us on a journey into a compelling, bizarre, and profoundly resonant realm; we enter the fearful sphere of Pascal's abyss, the surreal and literal labyrinth of books, and the iconography of eternal return. More playful and approachable than the fictions themselves are Borges's Prologues, brief elucidations that offer the uninitiated a passageway into the whirlwind of Borges's genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony,…
As an artist, I seek inspiration from life, about life.
If creativity is about life, then life is about death. What better angle to view the light than from the shadows? I always keep death lurking about in my own work, though often thinking about it makes me deal with it in a lighter way, because only through the darkness can the light have meaning, and often through humor you can convey heavy things.
The author has been a constant inspiration to me, because he always tells it as it is. If you want spiced up feel-good spirituality, don’t read any of his books.
An insightful collection of teachings about death and dying to help face life's greatest mystery calmly and with equanimity.
Lifetimes of effort go into organizing, designing, and structuring every aspect of our lives, but how many people are willing to contemplate the inevitability of death? Although dying is an essential part of life, it is an uncomfortable topic that most people avoid. With no idea what will happen when we die and a strong desire to sidestep the conversation, we make all kinds of assumptions.
Living Is Dying collects teachings about death and the bardos that have been passed down…
It’s not enough to know that Godot is a modern classic blah-blah-blah. I found that learning why was a crash course in creativity.
This play taught me so many profound lessons/strategies: Inaction is action; you cannot be inactive unless you have an active motivation; silence is brimming with sound; you can write a great play, and your characters can be anything but great; you can make a great philosophical statement through the most mundane of scenes.
Greatness comes with the overall synthesis of all the elements of the theatrical art – dialogue, story, stage, costume, etc. “Godot” is the most incredible name/metaphor. Can be anything, can be nothing.
I directed this play twice, and am still learning from it. I bow down to you, Samuel Beckett.
From an inauspicious beginning at the tiny Left Bank Theatre de Babylone in 1953, followed by bewilderment among American and British audiences, Waiting for Godot has become of the most important and enigmatic plays of the past fifty years and a cornerstone of twentieth-century drama. As Clive Barnes wrote, “Time catches up with genius … Waiting for Godot is one of the masterpieces of the century.”
The story revolves around two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone—or something—named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree, inhabiting a drama spun of their own consciousness. The result is a comical wordplay…
These 3 continuous comics from 1966 (Fantastic Four #48-50) were a master class in creativity for me, even before I started out as an artist.
I grew up an avid collector of Marvel comics in the 60s, in Taiwan, where they were not for sale anywhere, and I had to scrounge and search the streets of Taipei for used copies.
I accumulated a massive collection that I later sold for a Martin guitar. These 3 continuous comics from 1966 were a master class in creativity for me even before I started out as an artist.
They taught me: how to tell a story brilliantly; how to embed a twist in the inner core of the story: the villain Galactus, who has the power to destroy Earth, is just another guy who is tending to his needs – he is hungry, and Earth can provide a meal for him. Wow. What are we destroying when we sit down to dinner?
The Fantastic Four, Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing, face off against Galactus, the all-powerful World-Eater, meet the Uncanny Inhumans, and invite you to the historic wedding of Reed Richards and Susan Storm as only Marvel's most iconic creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby could have imagined!
See Reed Richards, Sue Richards, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm, the Fantastic Four, and Galactus on the big screen in FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS, in theaters July 25th, 2025!
Stan Lee called it "the World's Greatest Comic Magazine," and he wasn't kidding. If Lee…
The creative process may seem mysterious and only for the chosen few, but through decades of creative work and teaching, I find it is actually a traceable function of mind. We are all born with enormous creativity, and yet we lose these powers gradually through life itself.
The path back is thus through un-learning many of our habits picked up in life. We must re-learn how to see the world, clear away all the clutter in our minds, and develop what I call our Creative APP. Creativity then can be a most natural function that happens anytime, every day. Through a map that explains the path, I guide you through the process of learning and synthesizing method in your art, and wisdom in your life.
