Graham Linehan Quotes

I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it.

Ideas may drift into other minds, but they do not drift my way. I have to go and fetch them. I know no work manual or mental to equal the appalling heart-breaking anguish of fetching an idea from nowhere.

I know of no painless process for giving birth to a picture idea. When I must produce, I retire to a quiet room with a supply of cheap paper and sharp pencils; my brain knows it's going to take a beating.

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

I don't know how to organise thoughts. I don't know how to have thoughts.

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.

A lot of writing is thinking.

A lot of my creative energy is spent coming up with a concept that, once I get it, I feel like it writes itself.

I have multiple ideas per day, all the time. The vast majority of these are completely idiotic. Usually, I just sit on the idea for several months. And if I have not decided that it's idiotic, then it's... might be a good idea.

For a solo work I need a definite idea. For the present I have none.

If you're willing to put two thoughts into a picture then you're already ahead of the game.

I think when you have a lot of jumbled up ideas they come together slowly over a period of several years.

I do think that I'm a big believer in having an idea or having ideas and just tucking them away in the back of your brain. Even if you aren't consciously thinking of them, I think they simmer. You're working on them, even if you don't know you're working on them, and I think having something in your head for a while is a valuable thing.

Coming up with ideas is really hard - they don't spontaneously pop into my head while I'm cutting vegetables.

Think until it hurts.

Good and bad ideas both come from the same fountain of speculation and experiment.

Most people don't grab the right ideas or don't know what to do with them.

I enjoyed working with Vikram Kumar, as he is an amazing director who is full of ideas, and he tells me that he has different compartments in his brain in which he places different story ideas and works on them simultaneously.

It's not an easy job to think creatively and then also have to think logistically.

When I started doing projects for TV, I made sure to participate in the brainstorming sessions.

The truth of the matter is coming up with a title is one of the most challenging things we do.

Having an idea is easy, courting one can be difficult.

Eighty percent of my job is to ask the question, 'If this were real, what would it look like?'

I'm a thinker.

These days, there are times when my academic thinking intervenes in my writing, but it's usually while I'm developing a project and not while I'm writing it.