Jack W. Szostak Quotes

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.

Think your own thoughts.

My characteristics as a scientist stem from a non-conformist upbringing, a sense of being something of an outsider, and looking for different perceptions in everything from novels, to art to experimental results. I like complexity and am delighted by the unexpected. Ideas interest me.

In life, a lot of great ideas sound insane or absurd at first.

People are already self-selected by the time they've decided to become scientists.

We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.

The biggest handicap in research is an ability to think outside the box. The handicap is being encumbered by all the conventional wisdom in a given field.

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

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

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.

The essence of scientific genius is to question what the rest of us take for granted.

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

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

Creativity has got to have some edge to it, doesn't it?

Creativity has no boundaries.

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.

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.

Creativity is just learning to do something with a different perspective.

Creativity is the power to act.

Sometimes I have compared myself with a scientist or something: when you discover something and you don't expect the whole world to understand it. I always thought I was doing that kind of activity, in art and in music too.

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.

It can be said with complete confidence that any scientist of any age who wants to make important discoveries must study important problems. Dull or piffling problems yield dull or piffling answers. It is not enough that a problem should be "interesting".

The critical mind is the creative mind.

I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things; and a most perplexing problem it is. Many men who are very clever - much cleverer than the discoverers - never originate anything.

When will the arbitrary be granted the place it deserves in the formation of works and ideas?