Rem Koolhaas Quotes

When I'm writing, I generally toy with an idea until it manifests itself - meaning a phrase or a tune comes into my head and eventually begins to jell. When something hits me, I write it down immediately. I don't wait, or it's gone.

There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release.

I think, taking too long to work on a record, you sort of lose some of the feeling, so I write as fast as I can; it's just this manic phase where I'm by myself and or on tour, and I write, and I write.

Usually, I create tunes that are fragmented. I think the biggest obstacle for people with their creativity is that they feel they have to sit down and create this finished, polished product.

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often, some persons would say, write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission. The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them.

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.

I'm probably creative for half an hour a day. The rest of the time, I'm just doing what's necessary to make that creativity visible.

There's no such thing as writer's block. I'm brilliant all the time every day. It never stops.

I love meeting people who've read my books. The prime reason to be on the planet is to make things I can show to other people: paintings, books, movies.

Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will.

I have a little dictaphone and if a sound takes my fancy or if a lyric comes to me in the middle of the night I'll just record it there and then.

Any working composer or painter or sculptor will tell you that inspiration comes at the eighth hour of labour rather than as a bolt out of the blue. We have to get our vanities and our preconceptions out of the way and do the work in the time allotted.

'Southern Accents,' I think that's one of my best, really. That would have been 1984, and I wrote that on the piano in the studio at home. I had a studio, and I just happened to be down there in the middle of the night. It was quite late, probably early morning, and I just started to play, and a song just started to appear.

I think artists should really write more.

My creative juices flow seasonally.

I'm really happy when I'm actively creating things. When I'm frustrated and not excited, it's because I haven't written anything in a month or so.

Even if you're not releasing songs, the act of creativity is important. That's the part I love, when you're in the moment. The rest of it I'm not particularly interested in at all.

Being an artist, you soak up imagery, and you put it back out in whatever form you do your own imagery.

I just freestyle. I don't actually write the words on paper. It's just whatever comes into my mind. I'll record three or four lines at a time, get a good take, and do three or four more. It may be whatever comes into my mind. But I care about my craft a lot more than a lot of other people.

You just gotta record stuff and move on and make new material. Painters don't wait until they're in some specific gallery before they move on to the next painting.

One last thing on objectives - I like to make things, create things, so that's probably been the primary objective all along, even before the ego objective - to make. To record. But why record... that gets back to the ego, a little. Oh, well. Making is good. I like to make things.

I'm a bit like a sponge. When I'm not writing I absorb life like water. When I write I squeeze the sponge a little - and out comes, not water but ink.

I really admire songwriters or any kind of writer, painter or artist that says, "I'm going to get up at 8 o'clock in the morning and spend this time to this time creating." I do that sometimes, but the songs I like the best come as gifts from somewhere. It's almost like you didn't do anything, like you can't take credit for it because you sat down and the melody and words came out.

I tend to write first thing, and then do my drawing later. I like to draw at night. But often I go for long stretches without drawing, because I'm trying to figure out what I'm writing.