James Collins Quotes

A lot of things people see as innovative are faddish and fleeting, and I'm simply telling you, staying power like broadcasting has is more important in the end than the latest app you can download.

To me, ideas are like annoying salespeople that only go away once I've built them.

I'm like a crockpot on low heat. My mind constantly comes up with ideas, but I abandon a lot of them after a week or two. It's the ones that keep coming to me, that keep picking up flavors, that haunt me, those are the ones that wind up getting written.

A film is not something that can be made over the phone or Skype. Creative people meet, spend time together, and then come up with something.

It's only those exceptional and rare individuals who have brilliant ideas delivered to them by the muse, complete and gift wrapped. The rest of us have to work at it.

Every single thing in the world that was made by anyone started with an idea. So to catch one that is powerful enough to fall in love with, it is one of the most beautiful experiences. It's like being jolted with electricity and knowledge at the same time.

It's not the ink, it's the think.

Never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do.

So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know – just explore things.

They say an elephant never forgets. Well, you are not an elephant. Take notes, constantly. Save interesting thoughts, quotations, films, technologies…the medium doesn't matter, so long as it inspires you. When you're stumped, go to your notes like a wizard to his spellbook. Mash those thoughts together. Extend them in every direction until they meet.

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

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.

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

Directing, to me, starts even before we get to the set. Directing is a fluid, an abstract thing. It's not done only purely in the moment. It's an idea that you plant before. It's a location that you show. It's something I whisper in someone's ear. It's a freeform thing. It only takes me a week to write the script, but it's years that you're thinking about it. The execution is really the fast part.

I've always considered my work one piece and I consider that my work won't be finished until I am dead and buried and I hope that's a long, long time.

When you're shopping, too, you feel like you're designing as you're shopping. You're like, 'I love this, but I wish it was shorter or I wish it was purple. I wish it was a different fabric,' you know. It starts there, but then when you have to start from scratch, it really comes with an idea first, and then... you want to tweak and then you come up with something else and you want to add to it or change. It's fun. It's like an ocean - you can do whatever.

Sometimes it's easy to have ideas, but somebody has to find a way to do it. Often those responsible for finding a way don't have the idea.

Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being able to make something from a sudden idea.

There was no single moment when I thought, Aha! What a great idea! Rather there was a slow and gradual accumulation of numerous small ideas.

All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.

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.

If we want a better original idea, we must generate our own before we screen others' suggestions.

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.