Ursula K. Le Guin on working with what you have

The air is full of tunes. A piece of rock is full of statues. The earth is full of visions. The world is full of stories. As an artist, you trust that. You trust that that is so. You know that whatever your experience, it will give you the material, the ‘ideas’ for your work… But there’s no such thing as pure invention. It all starts with experience. Invention is recombination. We can work only with what we have.

—Ursula K. LeGuin