Richard Sennett, Back to the bench (2008)

"I don't think people dwell in a state of creativity; they actually have to do things." Needless to say, "gifted" – that mantra of every pushy parent – is "a word that makes me squirm, because it means you have the gift before you have the experience".

Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (2008)

“An eagle-reader will have noticed that the word creativity appears in this book as little as possible. This is because the word carries too much Romantic baggage—the mystery of inspiration, the claims of genius. I have sought to eliminate some of the mystery…”.

Richard Sennett. "Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization". 1994

"From Perikles' Athens to David's Paris, the word 'civic' has implied an intertwined fate, a crossing of fortunes. It was inconceivable to a Periklean Greek that his or her fortune could be separated from the fortunes of a city, or to a pagan Roman of Hadrian's time."