Grant Wood Quotes

On my walks, that's when the good ideas come. The kind of hard, gritty work is when you're sitting at the computer and it's kind of intense and you're kind of in super control of it - the walks are when you let go. That's when the really big breakthroughs come in, and it's very strange.

When I am traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that ideas flow best and most abundantly.

I don't go in search of ideas; I try to let them find me.

To create well I have to be in a good mood, happy and cool.

My good ideas are shy. But if they see that I treat the stupid ideas with respect, they come forward.

All good ideas arrive by chance.

You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.

The brilliant thing about swimming is that, while you're doing it, there's nothing else you could be getting on with, like the ironing or sorting out the children. My mind goes into free-float mode; some of the best ideas for plots come into my head while I'm ploughing up and down the pool.

I am always happy up a ladder with a paintbrush in my hand. And I wish I had more time to spend in the garden - not least because I get good ideas for writing when I'm out there.

There's nothing like sitting back and talking to your cows.

When you come up with a good idea, you don't have to do a whole lot. The idea does it for you.

Going off the grid is always good for me. It's the way that I've started books and finished books and gotten myself out of deadline dooms and things.

If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often.

I grew up cleaning stalls and milking cows.

After a day's fishing, I'll know the solution to something or have good ideas that were not accessible before.

I might even go for walks, just kind of come up with ideas in my head and then even sleep over it. And, yeah, the next day, when I wake up in the morning, I feel like that's when the ideas come, because you kind of wake up fresh and clean. You're not influenced from music on the radio or any other source.

I long for a kind of quiet where I can just drift and dream. I always say getting inspiration is like fishing. If you're quiet and sitting there and you have the right bait, you're going to catch a fish eventually. Ideas are sort of like that. You never know when they're going to hit you.

Alternating the thoughtful task of writing with the mindless work of laundry or dish washing will give you the breaks you need for new ideas and insights to occur. If you don't know what comes next in the story... clean your toilet. Change the bed sheets. For Christ sakes, dust the computer. A better idea will come.

Whenever an answer, a solution, or a creative idea is needed, stop thinking for a moment by focusing attention on your inner energy field. ... When you resume thinking, it will be fresh and creative.

No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.

Looking at scenes of nature, for even a short while, can help us become more insightful, more creative, and more productive.

I always have my best thoughts on the toilet.

In the shower, with the hot water coming down, you've left the real world behind, and very frequently things open up for you. It's the change of venue, the unblocking the attempt to force the ideas that's crippling you when you're trying to write.

Thought engenders thought. Place one idea on paper, another will follow it, and still another, until you have written a page; you cannot fathom your mind. There is a well of thought which has no bottom; the more you draw from it, the more clear and fruitful it will be.

The person with just one good idea is a thousand times better off than the person with no good ideas.