The novelist Pearl Buck argued that artists are people who tend to be extremely sensitive to any emotional input: “The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create . . .. By some strange unknown inward urgency, he is not really alive unless he is creating.”

from How to Know a Person
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Gender-neutral version:

The novelist Pearl Buck argued that artists are people who tend to be extremely sensitive to any emotional input: “The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create . . .. By some strange unknown inward urgency, one is not really alive unless one is creating.”

from How to Know a Person