Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Everything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again.

I just sit there and try to think of stuff that I could do that's a little different but still not step outside of who I am.

A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.

In a weird way, riffing on genres is kind of a reaction to formula. When you watch so much of the programmers and the films that you just think you've seen before, it's kind of going back to the well in terms of trying to conjure up the spirit of what made you excited about films in the first place.

Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

What you don't want is to repeat a formula over and over or impose a formula to a movie that...when you impose yourself and you impose a formula and you're not open to explore and to find what is right for the movie, I think you're doing a disservice to the story and what you're trying to express.

Original thinking migrates each day in search of nourishment.

If everyone thinks you're doing the right thing, then everyone would be doing it. Have a controversial strategy.

All you can do is make a piece of product, sell it on its own terms, stand behind it and hope that people will go see it. If you try to be like something else or appeal to any given group, then you can very easily end up being gratuitous and imitative. There's not much to be gained by that and I think too much time is spent going around trying to be like someone else.

I don't think in terms of results at all. I think: what next insanity can I shock the world with?

You may derive thoughts from others; your way of thinking, the mould in which your thoughts are cast, must be your own.

Never abandon imagination

What I see is trying to make sure that everybody thinks you have more than what you actually have. What’s the point if you actually don’t have it? If you don’t have it, then you don’t have it. Have what you have. Enjoy that . . . The craft is everything. Don’t be afraid of not being the wealthiest person in the room. Be the smartest person in the room. Be the slickest person in the room. Be the most creative person in the room. Be the most entertaining person in the room. Just be in the room.

Ideation is not a synonym for innovation, conformity is not its simple antonym, and innovation is not the automatic consequence of "creative thinking.".

Who can think wise or stupid things at all that were not thought already in the past.

Genius is what a man invents when he is looking for a way out.

Designers + artists see potential in things where others do not. I think artists in many ways are the original entrepreneurs.

All I want to be is, someone that makes, new things and, thinks about them.

I think to be creative you have to resist taking the easy path.

We who have been ahead in STYLE have usually been also ahead in our thinking.

Far more interesting than problem solving is problem creation.

You're not going to be able to look like anyone else, no matter how hard you try, unless you're a mimic, then you're not acting, you're just mimicking. You can't go on being John Wayne, that's John Wayne. So you're not going to steal from John Wayne. I'm not going to steal from John Wayne and you're not going to come back and say 'Didn't you get that from the circus?' You know. But he is one of those people who instructs me, whom I look up to - whom I think is one of the masters of his craft that I am so enamoured of.

One of my guiding principles is don't do anything that other people are doing. Always do something a little different if you can. The concept is that if you do it a little differently there is a greater potential for reward than if you the same thing that other people are doing. I think that this kind of goal for one's work, having obviously the maximum risk, would have the maximum reward no matter what the field may be.

If you have several ideas that all seem pretty good, work on the one that you think about, when you're not trying to think about work.

I'm trying to be less bombastic. I love my books. I think I've done things nobody else has done.