Pamela Druckerman Quotes

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be.

Most people have their best ideas when they take their minds away from problems they're trying to solve.

Never listen to music when you're trying go come up with a Big Idea.

I wish somebody had given me the news that ideas don't just fall on your head like fairy dust. You have to treat that like a job. You have to spend hours each day, where you're just like, 'This is the part of the day when I'm looking for an idea.'

I have a good idea every two years. Give me a topic, I will give you the idea!

I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea.

I try to stay focused on my creativity.

Juggling many projects and having all these accidental collisions that you can't predict enables a kind of comparative thinking. To focus on a single project from beginning to end is extremely difficult, not just for me, but for many people.

Your best ideas, those eureka moments that turn the world upside down, seldom come when you're juggling emails, rushing to meet the 5 P.M. deadline or straining to make your voice heard in a high-stress meeting. They come when you're walking the dog, soaking in the bath or swinging in a hammock.

I think the older I get the more creative I get, I don't have the distractions that I had when I was younger.

Being lazy does not mean that you do not create. In fact, lying around doing nothing is an important, nay crucial, part of the creative process. It is meaningless bustle that actually gets in the way of productivity. All we are really saying is, give peace a chance.

When you come up with a good idea, you don't have to do a whole lot. The idea does it for you.

You don't disrupt genius at work.

I usually have more than one thing I'm working on at once - I've been working on three different novels. When I get stuck on one, I hop back and forth.

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

I come up with more ideas when I'm on the road, but I don't get to finish them. I don't get to fully flush them out because I'm so busy on the road. I'm very all over the place, but I'm definitely most creative when I'm out here.

I usually have two or three ideas floating around. When I have free time, the one I end up thinking most about is the one I end up pursuing.

I found that pottering is very conducive to my creative process, so now, I find myself being incredibly creative because I've got such much to procrastinate with.

Getting the ideas are a struggle for me. I'm doing better now that I use the concentration tapes. More unusual ideas.

I'm always working on something. I wish I had more time for free-thinking and brainstorming new ideas. That's not to say my mind doesn't wander, but I find myself wishing for more of that kind of time.

An addiction to distraction is the end of your creative production.

I never had a lot of ideas. I always have exactly one that is the next project; the idea of a project beyond that project is ludicrous.

It’s interesting that most gadgets are called ‘iPhone’ and ‘iPod,’ with that ‘i’ prefix, which is ego. But most creativity is not ego-led – a lot of it comes from the unconscious. So if you’re always checking your email or updating your Instagram profile, you’re not just looking out the window, daydreaming. You’ve got to let the subconscious in – that’s my main message to the world.

I wake up sometimes with an idea and then I write it down. It's not necessarily easy, but when you focus on something it comes.

I think Leonardo da Vinci teaches us the value of both being focused on things that fascinate us but also, at times, being distracted and deciding to pursue some shiny new idea that you happen to stumble upon. Balancing intense focus with being interested in a whole lot of different things is something that we have to do in the Internet age.