John W. Gardner Quotes

Creativity requires the freedom to consider 'unthinkable' alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices. Every organization, every society is under the spell of assumptions so familiar that they are never questioned, least of all by those most intimately involved.

I think we shouldn't buckle up our creativity. You've got to experiment!

Innovation, creativity, and lunacy goes hand in hand.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you're going to innovate.

It's how creativity works. Especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original.

Really interesting things come because you don't know what the rules are, what you can and can't do.

Not to be boxed in, to be able to transcend boundaries: for an artist, it's essential.

If you stick with a vision, it might not all work, but some of it will be absolute genius. To me, 15 minutes worth of absolute genius in a film is so much better than two hours of mediocrity. I would rather pay to see something different like that.

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.'

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.

For a writer, you definitely do not want to be in the mainstream. You want to be on the edge because that's where the vantage point is. That's where you can see.

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

A truly creative person rids him or herself of all self-imposed limitations.

There has to be an element of risk-taking for me in my work.

It's all about risk-taking when you're making an album. Don't be scared to do weird things sometimes.

I make records with an open mind, I always have.

Since I was in my early twenties, at ABC, I was always only interested in things that were not already being done.

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn't been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that's really worthwhile.

I always wanted to be really experimental.

An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail

More or less, I am always saying, 'Let's do what has not been done.'

It's something I have always tried to do in my career - play outside the box.

I believe that the constant possibility of failure or possibility of decision-making feeds your creativity.

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.