John Lukacs Quotes

I always write after I think for quite a long time, so the actual writing time is rather short. I think a lot of the work gets done when you have something on your mind while you're doing many other things.

Every piece of technology, every piece of art, basically everything manmade comes from an idea.

A lot of writing is thinking.

The great thing about ideas is that every new idea leads to two more new ones. It’s the opposite of a gold rush, where the more people who show up in 1849 to get that gold in California, the faster the gold runs out. Ideas are not like that; ideas breed.

We are apt to consider that invention is the result of spontaneous action of some heavenborn genius, whose advent we must patiently wait for, but cannot artificially produce. It is unquestionable, however, that education, legal enactments, and general social conditions have a stupendous influence on the development of the originative faculty present in a nation and determine whether it shall be a fountain of new ideas or become simply a purchaser from others of ready-made inventions.

The history of scientific and technical discovery teaches us that the human race is poor in independent and creative imagination. Even when the external and scientific requirements for the birth of an idea have long been there, it generally needs an external stimulus to make it actually happen; man has, so to speak, to stumble right up against the thing before the idea comes.

Creativity has a lot to do with the main idea. Inspiration is what comes when you are dealing with the idea. But inspiration won't invite what's not there to begin with.

If you're thinking about the idea in the shower. If you're thinking about the idea while you're walking your dog, there's probably something to it.

Ideas are the very coinage of your brain.

I'm not a craftsman of graphics or art or film. I'm more of an idea generator and manufacturer.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.

I'm very much an observer and a conduit of thoughts and ideas.

Creativity requires input, and that's what research is. You're gathering material with which to build.

I never sit down and write. I just sorta let things form in my brain.

I pick up inspiration from everywhere and it all manages to keep stored in my brain somewhere.

The hardest thing is the idea. Ideas come from somewhere but as far as we know they come from nowhere.

I do think that I'm a big believer in having an idea or having ideas and just tucking them away in the back of your brain. Even if you aren't consciously thinking of them, I think they simmer. You're working on them, even if you don't know you're working on them, and I think having something in your head for a while is a valuable thing.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

I typically spend a year thinking about a book before I begin writing it.

You know those little snow globes that you shake up? I always thought my brain was sort of like that. You know, where you just give it a shake and watch what comes out and shake it again. It's like that.

Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.

My process is thinking, thinking and thinking - thinking about my stories for a long time.

The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.

A lot of times, you have an idea, and all the things you are thinking about might fuel it. But that's not where the idea came from.