Erik Larson Quotes

I think I'm right-brained, incapable of managing my way out of a brown paper bag.

[Describing FDR:] ... a man who thinks the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line but a corkscrew.

One of the biggest challenges we have, as business owners and people, is that we think in linear terms.

I pride myself on being able to create mismatches. That's what I've done my whole life.

I have taken my outside-the-box, innovative, and sometimes unorthodox approach to Congress.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

People who are deep thinkers, who have sort of a weird way of looking at the universe, are wildly attractive to me.

Extraordinary situations require an out-of-box thinking. Conventionalists cannot find such solutions.

The one thing I've tried to do is be insightful.

I want to show people it's not elitist to be a deep thinker.

Eighty percent of my job is to ask the question, 'If this were real, what would it look like?'

For me, my greatest weakness is also my greatest strength: I'm a complete overthinker about everything.

I'm a thinker.

I actually find it's more interesting to play in the niches and find ways to apply technology to relatively straightforward problems.

I would say that many architects are very logical. They start their process from analysis and from rational processes to try and find the 'right' answer, like solving a mathematic equation.

When I get serious criticism - if I get serious criticism - it's about how I'm thinking and engaging in a topic. I can't think of an example of someone saying, 'You're too nice.'

Sometimes I feel drawn to writing about my shortcomings because I'm chock full of them.

I give people ideas on how to solve intractable problems.

We need to think out of the box rather than just going round and round, beating ourselves up about numbers.

I think I'm constantly surprised that adults can't deal with illogical things or thing that are weird or psychedelic. I've never really lost that.

I'm a bit crazy, so sometimes I just get these mad ideas that, on paper, aren't even possible.

You know, when you look carefully at stuff that you deal with everyday, applying a little creativity to it and thinking outside the box, it's amazing what you can do.

As regards obstacles, the shortest distance between two points can be a curve.

The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done-men who are creative, inventive, and discovers. The second goal of education is to form minds which can be critical, can verify, and not accept everything they are offered.

It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.