W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

I never think in metaphors or fully make those kind of associations myself. I just lay down a complex situation and hope things arise from that.

Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.

In truth, every creation of the mind is first of all 'poetic' in the proper sense of the word; and inasmuch as there exists an equivalence between the modes of sensibility and intellect, it is the same function that is exercised initially in the enterprises of the poet and the scientist.

There's no possibility that foresight work will ruin my creativity. It goes to a different area than the creative wellspring of SF.

For me, the creative process is this giant patchwork of information.

Thought is more important than art. To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is.

I like to see a film and then start scoring it in my mind while doing something unrelated. You just grasp a film and start working, and something unpredictable comes out from a third element. The mind, the more active it is, the more productive it is.

Some people would say my paintings show a future world and maybe they do, but I paint from reality. I put several things and ideas together, and perhaps, when I have finished, it could show the future.

Reason is mechanical, wit chemical, and genius organic spirit.

I've got research, I have my own life experience I can apply, and I have my imagination.

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

Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art.

Lots of creativity is and should be solitary.

Most creative work is a process of people passing ideas and inspirations from the past into the future and adding their own creativity along the way.

Creating something is all about problem-solving.

I am interested in ideas, not merely in visual products.

It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.

Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up.

A new idea is like carbonated liquid in a bottle. You just sort of shake it until the cork pops, then you write and write.

The creative processes are so mysterious.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

I've always thought abstractly - through theme and variations rather than narrative.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

Analysis I take to be a scientific procedure. What I do is creative. It doesn't spring from the same part of the mind.

That's the buzz for me, the creative process. An idea is never as good as when it's in your head. And then it's just how little you ruin it.