Steven Soderbergh Quotes

Solve problems, make art, think deeply.

So that is the design process or the creative process. Start with a problem, forget the problem, the problem reveals itself or the solution reveals itself and then you reevaulate it. This is what you are doing all the time.

In the studio, I don't do a lot of work that requires repetitive activity. I spend a lot of time looking and thinking and then try to find the most efficient way to get what I want, whether it's making a drawing or a sculpture, or casting plaster or whatever.

Most directors that I've worked with - I've worked with before, especially in Holland - and they know that I'm somebody who talks and asks, and talks, and talks, and talks and questions and turns things around. I'm like a little cat, walking around my little nest until I find my place.

In a movie you have all these logistical problems; all these practical problems. But you're also going to have people come who can do things that you can't do, and you get to direct their talents.

Honestly, I think most directors are about, 'Let's do the most fun and effective thing here and figure out how afterwards.'

The truth is, I don't sketch much at all. I have a very visual/spatial brain that retains a lot of information about maps, directions, positioning, and details, so I usually prefer working out those issues on the page itself.

It's always about the project itself than a character for me. It's all experiential.

Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem.

Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder.

Every problem has a creative solution.

Creating is no problem - problem solving is not creating.

A writer doesn’t solve problems. He allows them to emerge.

My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?

I think the whole thing that Jamie [Hyneman] and I have in working together is that we are constantly simplifying each other's designs, and we both appreciate that the quickest and the dirtiest solution is usually the most elegant, the least expensive, and the fastest.

Never attack a problem without also presenting a solution.

Problems cannot be solved with words, but only through experience.

It is not enough just to identify a problem; there are plenty of people who were very skilled at pointing out what was wrong with the world, but they were not always so adept at working out how these things could be righted.

To be creative, a person has to internalize the entire system that makes creativity possible. Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.

You read something and you know it's not there yet. There's a little section here that... this part's good but that is a little not, it doesn't quite work. That doesn't quite work. That's easy. To say, "OK, now, this is what I think will fix it." That's harder. And most people can tell you what's wrong with something. Very few people can say what they would do to fix it.

Engineering isn't about perfect solutions; it's about doing the best you can with limited resources.

When things go wrong, this is what you should do. Make good art.

It seems that we're better at finding someone to blame for our problems than we are at finding creative solutions to fix them.

Point out the problems, as long as you have a solution. I don't like critics who aren't doers themselves.

Every time I have had a problem, I have confronted it with the ax of art.