Stan Lee Quotes

I don't think it's a mistake to put every great idea into the first movie, because I've always said there won't be a second movie if you go 'we'll hold back these ideas for another one.

I love the stories that have come before, that we know of. I think for me it's always more interesting to start from square one and you take the fundamental pillars of the character and, around that, try to create something new and different.

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

Brian Eno developed systems to keep himself on edge and to keep himself in a position where he's generating ideas.

When you have a creative mind it doesn't stop going.

One day I had an idea for a movie. Everything came after that.

I would worry if I wasn't coming up with ideas, if I wasn't inspired.

My goal is always to make something unpredictable that feels inevitable in the end. It's getting harder to do that. Audiences are so sophisticated and so smart.

I say to my pupils, 'You can pitch me any thing you've got, but tell me why you're the only person who can write it in the world. Keep digging.'

The truth is, it is hard to know where ideas come from.

Novels begin, not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming - In thinking, not writing.

I find it inspiring and I always think when I'm working on something new, whether it's a new kind of character or a new kind of story or new kind of camera, it gets my creative wheels spinning.

When you have that first flash of what you think is going to be a great idea-from the mouth, from the hands-that's an amazing feeling. I don't think anything's quite as good as that.

I always begin with a character or characters, and then try to think up as much action for them as possible.

I can't really say - if I've run out of ideas until I've had my next set of ideas.

It's rare you get an idea from a dream. I can't really recall a story that ever worked out that way. I think in 35 years of writing, that I've ever had a dream that held up. They're much too dislocated

I'm often asked, 'Where do you get your ideas?' ...It's like asking, 'Where do you find air to breathe?' Ideas are all around you.

Though I am never exactly "blocked" I do have difficult periods. I am led by a fascination with material - the challenge of presenting it in an original and engaging way. I have no problem imagining stories, characters, distinctive settings & themes - but the difficulty is choosing a voice & a language in which to present it.

Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.

Knowledge is the stuff from which new ideas are made. Thus, the real key to being creative lies in what you do with your knowledge.

I think my biggest problem, though, at least in drafts, is not repeating myself. After eight books I get worried that a character or piece of dialog might be too much like something I've already done. So it's a challenge to keep it fresh.

Who wants to put together something that will bear some relationship to the vision or memory or experience or story or idea or dream or whatever.

When you're trying to come up with an idea for a movie it's actually the hardest part - the germ of the idea. Inevitably you think of something that would be great and then discover that it was on an episode of The Simpsons.

I've no idea where ideas come from and I hope I never find out; it would spoil the excitement for me if it turned out I just have a funny little wrinkle on the surface of my brain which makes me think about invisible train platforms.

composition is notation of distortion of what composers think they've heard before. Masterpieces are marvelous misquotations.