Karen Elson Quotes

Do as many ideas as possible. The right idea will pick you.

One day God felt he ought to give his workshop a spring clean... It was amazing what ragged bits and pieces came from under his workbench as he swept. Beginnings of creatures, bits that looked useful but had seemed wrong, ideas he'd mislaid and forgotten... There was even a tiny lump of sun. He scratched his head. What could be done with all this rubbish?

Behind every great idea is someone saying "It won't work"

Don't look back. Just go ahead. Give ideas away. Under every idea there's a new idea waiting to be born.

Over the years, I discovered over and over again that once you lose control, you have a chance of getting good at it. And once you're controlling the work, it's not going to be very good, or it won't be as good as it should be.

I'm very musically curious and I love new experience. I'm an adventurer. Some people want to sort of stay in a safe zone and repeat the same things and give them more depth, and I want to do new things all the time

Sometimes I think that ideas float through the atmosphere like huge squishy pumpkins, waiting for heads to drop on.

I love the idea of messing around with different mediums.

You can't have good ideas unless you have lots of ideas.

The first idea, the first art piece I ever did, was when I was four. I cut the seed of a pear in half and the seed of an apple in half in put those two halves together and planted the seed, hoping a very strange tree might grow. And I never stopped.

I absolutely adore the alchemy of a bit of an idea.

If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you.

I had the perfect accident for the perfect idea. I was rendered immobile where the only thing I could do is mess with my computer.

It's better to give ideas away and contribute to another person's success than to have them lying dormant.

We hear again and again from founders, that they wish they had waited to start a startup until they came up with an idea they really loved.

Be authentic to your dreams. Be authentic to your own idea about yourself. Grind away at your own minds and bodies until you become your own invention. Be Mad Scientists.

We cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all. Because the worth of the idea never becomes apparent until you do it. Sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world, a little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand, and pray will not be extinguished by all the storm that howls about it. If you could hold onto that flame, great things could construct around it, that are massive and powerful and world changing, all held up by the tiniest of ideas.

If you remember only one thing I've said, remember that an idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor. If you have never made a good metaphor, then you don't know what it's all about.

I tell the actors that the biggest gift they can give me is to fail. And that the second gift they can give me is to surprise me.

You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas.

The idea should come first, the startup should come second.

Nobody needs a movie to give them an idea.

Don't be afraid to do something unconventional, to take a chance, to risk something.

Don't stop. Narrow your focus to one idea, and make it work. That will give birth to all of the others. All you can do is plant the seed and water it.

If I had to give you one piece of advice, it would be this: don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do. Seek out people who aren’t afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of that, their work often isn’t recognized, but they are precisely the kind of people who change the world and, after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely.