Robert Mankoff Quotes

Every movie I do, I always use things that have happened in my life. Funny moments, anything. If it just sticks out I'll write it down and use that, too, because it has to come out of you. But no one can work when they're depressed. I don't think I'd physically be able to do it if I were depressed.

It's fun because you can escape and learn about what other people's minds have created. It inspires you to think maybe you could come up with a creature yourself. I like that.

When I was going through those very fast changes, I think it was terribly important to me that I was seen to be inventive. I think that was the characteristic of my work that I wanted people to see.

Artists are in the imagining/ prototyping business. Society needs people to be out there thinking of what might be. That cannot be something we just delegate to politicians or technologists.

I think there are dozens or hundreds of different forms of creativity. Pondering science and math problems for years is different from improvising jazz. Something which seems to me remarkable is how unconscious the creative process is. You encounter a problem, but can't solve it.

I write in my own journal when something extraordinary or funny happens. And there's some nice imagery in there. I don't think of what to do with it.

I think of myself as a comedian who has the pleasure of writing jokes about things that I actually care about.

All you need is your own imagination. So use it that's what it's for.

My mind has an obsessive, neurotic quality, but I also have a very hard work ethic. I know that a lot of people think, oh, you have a wild imagination. I don't, really. If ten people are sitting around and someone says, "Hey complete this sentence in a funny way," I'm never ahead of the pack.

As I get older and write more books I'm definitely allowing the humorous side of my personality more rein in my work.

All writers, I think, are to one extent or another, damaged people. Writing is our way of repairing ourselves.

I am fully intelligent only when I write. I have a certain amount of small-change intelligence, which I carry round with me as, at any rate in a town, one has to carry small money, for the needs of the day, the non-writing day. But it seems to me I seldom purely think ... if I thought more I might write less.

If I wasn't an actor, I think I'd have gone mad. You have to have extra voltage, some extra temperament to reach certain heights.

To realize our true creative potential - in our organizations, in our schools and in our communities - we need to think differently about ourselves and towards each other. We must learn to be creative.

It's hard to think back. I didn't even know I was going to do it, make actual records. But I was always making up songs, once I figured out that you could do it. I think it's pretty much the same, but there's less urge to get it moving out there. There was a time when it seemed like it was really super important to the audience and now it's just medium-important for people to like us. But that's okay.

Everything comes to me while I'm sitting on the pot.

I think the word "intelligent" dictates a lot about someone's sense of humor, and the terms of reference in your life, the way you interpret something you read or a painting you look at or something.

I don't want to pick a team. I want to make people laugh and hopefully bring some - be humorous about the human experience, you know, whether they're people of any stripes of life.

To be honest, I don't necessarily think you have to be an actor to act. You don't have to be a musician to make great music. If it comes along and you put your all into it, the outcome is what's important.

Writing about something specific, in my mind, was overwhelming, so I wrote about art because I love art and I know I can say a couple of funny things about art.

Creativity, as I see it, is the process of putting your imagination to work. It's been defined rather simply as applied imagination. That's not a bad way to think about it.

As an actor, I think sort of relish the chance to take a leap and sort of put yourself out there. You know, it's, like on any film, you just have to be willing to embarrass yourself, because otherwise you are not going to really reveal anything that you have. So I think it's exciting.

I think everyone is born creative but it can be suppressed by fear.

I think people need to laugh everyday. Whether the economy is good or bad, I think the most important thing is to laugh and to feel positive, if you are laughing at something positive. But if you are laughing at mean jokes then it's a wash.

The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions. Perhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom.