Michael Pollan Quotes

I don't know what I'm going to write when I begin to write. It feels like you are walking down a path, but you can't see around the bend and you don't know where you are going to go, which is fun.

The big thing about writing is three commands: Have fun. Don't think. Don't care.

I just write about what I feel I want to write about. I'm like a kid. I get an idea, and it's like a kid's toy that you push and tug around the room. It's fun, it's bright, it's pretty and maybe it'll go clack-clack or whiz-whiz, whatever it happens to do. I like to make believe.

If the unusual never happened there would be no difference in people and then there wouldn't be any fun in life. The game would become merely a matter of addition and subtraction. It would make of us a race of bookkeepers with plodding minds. It's the guessing that develops a man's brain power.

I don't need to feel 100% safe, but I have to feel like there's room for me to go a little bit insane if I'm going to have good ideas. Because a good idea is a new idea and if you start going around like, "I have this new idea!" most people are gonna be like, "I've never heard that before, that sounds fishy."

People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

Here's the truth you have to wrestle with: the reason that art (writing, engaging, leading, all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can't tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there'd be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map. Don't you hate that? I love that there's no map.

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.

If I knew where I was going, I wouldn't do it. When I can predict or plan it, I don't do it.

I don't ever know where I'm going. Because one of the wonderful things about writing, which is different than working in programming, you don't need to know. You could just write and discover where you're going. And it's a great deal of fun.

In 10 years, I don't really know what I'll be, and I like not having any idea. I like the idea of being so passionate about everything I do and the fact that I might wake up tomorrow and say 'I want to be a chef,' and just pour myself into that.

I just assumed the world was full of solo percussionists. I couldn't find sticks or music or anything where I was, but that was expected because there was nothing there anyway. And I think that was possibly the greatest asset for me, just not knowing.

I'm just working and having a good time and seeing what develops, which is so awesome, because you don't know what's going to happen, and I'm letting myself do that a lot more than I ever have.

2015 was, like, packed from January. 2016 is simultaneously open and packed - but I'm trying to keep 2016 open as possible so I can do weird, crazy, kooky stuff.

I've never had a grand plan. I've only just tried to keep open to many different possibilities, have fun and work with people who are passionate about what they do.

I have no time for specialized concerns, working themes or variations that lead to mastery... I like the indefinite, the boundless; I like continual uncertainty. Other qualities may be more conducive to achievement, publicity, success; but they are all outworn - as outworn as ideologies, opinions, concepts and names for things.

Art is about going a little nuts... Kids do art for fun. It's playing.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

The essence of play is that the sequence of actions is fluid and scattered.

I wouldn't be interested in just doing a show that's mapped out and choreographed with a set list. That would've been boring so long ago it just wouldn't be any fun.

I write from my imagination, not from what I've read in books or seen on TV or to make money. I wrote from an idea I was passionate about.

It's really hard for me to commit, one way or the other. I was just always creating and seeing what came out.

Life isn't a science. We make it up as we go.

I like uncertainty in roles, and I like uncertainty in art, really.

I defied nothing at all. I ignored the law because I didn't know it existed. It didn't occur to me that anyone would want to curb my inspiration.