Imtiaz Ali Quotes

All the things worth writing about are outside me. I'm a lens, not a source. And even if it's not always a comfortable journey, it's always a stimulating one.

I'm not such a fan of imagination. If you're alive to details, they oftentimes suggest a richer or deeper imaginative line than you would have imagined.

I don't do a lot of research, exactly, but I'm constantly wandering through the world finding things incredible and remembering them.

The great thing about books is that you can end with a question mark.

I'm inspired by almost everything I come across in life, and one way or another they find themselves sneaking into my stories.

I try not to invent; I try simply to translate the weird language of the natural world. And I'm not into absolute ownership of things.

It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.

I see things with my own eyes, just as if they were the first eyes that ever saw, and then I set about to tell, as best I can, just what I've seen.

I look for stories everywhere.

Creativity is a scavenger hunt. It's your obligation to pay attention to clues, to the thing that gives you that little tweak.

Reading makes me want to write my own books, and just trying to understand what I see in the world around me makes me want to figure things out.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Science provides an understanding of a universal experience. Arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience.

What drives the creative person is that we see it all.

I've always been inspired by small details that make me wander. My mother would ask me, 'What are you looking at so intensely?' I would answer, 'Everything and nothing.' She really supported my wanderings, called me Marco Polo.

I'm ever curious about the world. I'm driven to go out and find new things to write about. Having a vivid imagination is also a plus.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

I don't write about the same thing every time, everyday, different things are happening out there and if you take the time to look around, you can see that, then you can put it all together and tell the story.

Reading has been the fuel of my motivation: it has changed the direction in which I have traveled, and it has enhanced my creative imagination more than any other activity I have ever pursued.

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

I'm nosey, and I have a great imagination. So it's not necessarily things I have to go through, but it's things people I know or my family is going through, and I hear about it, and I think, 'That sounds like a great song.'

Well, you know, writers just suck up new experiences - we're just like the vacuum cleaners of newness.

The most important thing is to live an interesting life. Keep your eyes, ears and heart open. Talk to people and visit interesting places, and don't forget to ask questions. To be a writer you need to drink in the world around you so it's always there in your head.

Strange questions are the more interesting ones. Children by and large don't try to trip you up... they want to find out how you do this funny thing that you do... if they've loved a story they love to know how it started.