Paul Beatty Quotes

The results of ethnic psychology constitute, at the same time, our chief source of information regarding the general psychology of the complex mental processes.

Such being the nature of mental life, the business of psychology is primarily to describe in detail the various forms which attention or conation assumes upon the different levels of that life.

In Psychology we deal with minds and their processes, and leave out of account as far as possible the objects that we get to know by means of them.

I did psychology at university, but I wouldn't say that my music is too influenced by it. The way I make music is a little more to do with an emotional connection. When I compose the melodies for my tracks, it always comes from the heart.

I think that in general it is a good plan occasionally to bear in mind the fact that people were in the habit of dreaming before there was such a thing as psychoanalysis.

But it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too apt to reason as geometers would, if the latter were to say that the diameter of a circle is the same thing as its semi-circumference, because, forsooth, they terminate in the same two points.

I mean that psychologically. I think [Donald Trump] showed in the debates when he encounters criticism or challenge he behaves the way a bully would. He just doesn't take it well.

The thing that I really like is psychology. I love the human mind. I love the choices you make based on your experiences and instincts and your development based on such experiences and so I guess that's why I love acting so much.

I was a psychology major. I think that definitely helps in general life; I enjoy trying to figure out why people are the way they are.

British press think entirely in clichés, and when they do come across creative work, they think that it must be based on something, because they don't realize that you can create things that aren't based on things.

Every creative person can draft into service those around them who exhibit the right mixture of intelligence, insight, and grace.

Creativity comes from the part of the brain that is veritable soup of experiences, memories and influences. We really don't like to start questioning exactly where it comes from, in case it stops coming.

It was our goal to dig into the characters and really try to find out why they think the things they think and why they do the things they do - and we got some amazingly candid and revealing interviews - but it's not my job to offer summary judgment on those interpretations.

If anything I think postmodernism has the least impact on my work.

I try when I'm writing to fill my head and my ears with all sorts of stuff and then let it settle and filter through. At a certain point it seems like fruitless activity because you're taking a lot of time and not seeming to get anything. And then, slowly, you realize you've actually digested elements and that your thinking is being freed up and the way you build up compositions is changed as a result of what you've been listening to.

Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you're doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.

Most of us have the residue of thousands of songs in our ears, that if you end up songwriting, I think you're mostly smoking the residue of all that material you absorbed over time.

The ego represents what we call reason and sanity, in contrast to the id which contains the passions.

I think sometimes maybe you're going to connect with the audience more than others, but the journey is about getting all there is to get out of this group of people.

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

I used to think Twitter was a waste of time and sort of ran counter to my ability to be productive and to write and now Twitter feels like a really cool part of the creative experience.

I definitely think of myself still as a writer first, and feel like - with the lucky exception of this - any acting opportunity I've gotten is usually because I was writing on it. This is like a wonderful vacation. If you've ever sat in a writers' room it's the most disgusting, tortuous place, so it's a treat to be treated like a movie actor.

All creative work, all life in a sense, is a cri de coeur.

One had better not rush, otherwise dung comes out rather than creative work.

There is a creative pleasure, which, for instance, the artisan in the Middle Ages, or in a country like Mexico, still today has - namely the pleasure of creating something. You find quite a few skilled workers who still have that pleasure: maybe in a steel mill; maybe a worker who works with a complicated machine - he has a sense that he is creating something.