Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

The truth is, it is hard to know where ideas come from.

Creativity arises out of the state of thoughtless presence in which you are much more awake than when you are engrossed in thinking.

There are certain phrases in books of mine, and I don't know where they came from, or how I was capable of thinking up these formulations. It's only in the heat of composition that these things occur to you.

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.

Of course creativity is a mystery. We don't know what drives it or what constitutes it. It's one of those things, like genius, you know it when you see it but it's impossible to define.

The hardest thing is the idea. Ideas come from somewhere but as far as we know they come from nowhere.

I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.

It often happens that things come into the mind in a more finished form than could have been achieved after much study.

I don't know how to make magic. For most songwriter's that has only happened once or twice, and I don't know how to re-create that. I know that there are some tricks and tools, but the magic is the amazing part.

When you have that first flash of what you think is going to be a great idea-from the mouth, from the hands-that's an amazing feeling. I don't think anything's quite as good as that.

With the word creative we stand under a mystery. And from time to time that mystery, as if it were a sun, sends down upon one head or another, a sudden shaft of light - by grace, one feels, rather than deserving, for it always is something given, free, unsought, unexpected.

First thoughts have tremendous energy. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash.

Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.

Creative thought must always contain a random component.

You can think of creativity as applied imagination.

I can't tell you why I choose stuff, it's really something I don't analyse. The only thing I can say is that a film has to demand to be made, I don't have a plan of what films I'm going to make. The only thing that I know now is that I'm not too crazy about doing things again that I've been into before.

I've no idea where ideas come from and I hope I never find out; it would spoil the excitement for me if it turned out I just have a funny little wrinkle on the surface of my brain which makes me think about invisible train platforms.

When people ask me what it is about Brazil and my work, it's not something that I can say literally. It's unidentifiable. It's like when you do research and things inspire you. If you're smart enough, then obviously you don't take it literally. The inspiration will come out later somehow.

It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over.

You don't actually have ideas; ideas have you.

I'm not much given to making shamanistic remarks about all this, but I'm a great believer in the dream life. If I can carry without spilling whatever it is that drips into my head in the night to my desk, then that's valuable.

I actually don't have a great surplus of ideas. Some evolve very slowly, over many years, but I sort of trust that all of the interesting ones will become something that I eventually end up doing.

It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.

A lot of times, you have an idea, and all the things you are thinking about might fuel it. But that's not where the idea came from.