Lawrence Lessig Quotes

Creativity is not and never has been sensible.

My respect for artists is very high. I think to get the most out of them, you have to liberate them. I think part of liberating them is saying, 'Come up with something brilliant, new, and fresh. Stop thinking based on what has been beat into you by executives or publishers in terms of what's going to work and what's not. Don't react, just act.'

My influences change all the time; they have to remain current, because they're the things that capture your imagination and make you want to go into the studio.

There's no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist.

About half my designs are controlled fantasy, 15 percent are total madness and the rest are bread-and-butter designs.

I always wanted to be really experimental.

I think if you speak to any creative person, there's something so powerful - so intoxicating, if you will - about discovering another voice, another instrument, another way of looking at things, another way of perceiving things.

The secret sauce of the business that I can offer is my creativity, and in order to keep my creativity alive and fresh, I have to pretend that no one is watching the show, that there are no audiences, there are no ratings; I'm just telling a story.

I've worked with people who wanted to be creative every day: it was like a goal to arrive with something very special. Sometimes it's just disturbing, because special is good when it's needed. But when it's not needed, it's confusing, and you go away from the authenticity by a strong desire to be unique and singular.

I'm a complete deviant. All creative work breaks new ground.

As far as creation goes, you just really have to not overthink and just create and be confident. If you think it's tight, then the world is going to think it's tight.

Society may shun bohemia, may put it down, may consider it useless and ineffective, but it is where everything cooks and boils and is created.

The way creative people live is different from people who don't do anything creative.

Creativity is an ode to life. It is not a form of entertainment. It is a form of joy.

Creativity means learning where the rules exist, and then breaking them! Saying, "It's better this way." But you have to know the rules in order to break them with any grace.

The imagination is how things get done. You have to cultivate creativity.

Let's say I've directed that [writing] energy into writing my latest book but suddenly, I really want to write about an onion. I don't say to myself, "No, you have stay on the subject," because I know that the longer I stay on the subject the more boring I get. So, if my mind wants to write about an onion, it might be a deeper way to go into what I'm working on, even though it might seem irrelevant. This is how I've learned to follow my mind.

I would rather have ideas and some difficulties of technique than a perfect technique and no ideas.

Creativity involves putting your imagination to work. In a sense, creativity is applied imagination.

You always want to do something different. I enjoy the process. I like making movies, and it's increasingly hard to find a movie you'd want to make.

Creativity is not an ability that you either have or do not have. It is, for example, and this may surprise you, absolutely unrelated to IQ, provided you're intelligent above a certain minimal level.

I was meticulously copying other art and then I realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead.

Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.

When we are writing, or painting, or composing, we are, during the time of creativity, freed from normal restrictions, and are opened to a wider world, where colors are brighter, sounds clearer, and people more wondrously complex than we normally realize.

I couldn't say there is a formula to songwriting. Each time is a unique experience.