Edward Ruscha Quotes

I like to drive with my knees. Otherwise, how can I put on my lipstick and talk on the phone?

I have so many ideas while I'm driving.

In my case, the listener is often in an automobile driving to work. You can concentrate on the road while still getting an audio message that can be riveting.

I'm actually not a very good driver, to be honest with you. I'm a scatterbrain driver. I'm not very focused. I'm always trying to find the right music station or put on a new CD or trying to eat something.

You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.

When it comes to cars, only two varieties of people are possible - cowards and fools.

For notes related to books I'm writing, I've wondered whether I should organize my notes better, but I do find that the action or scrolling through them and seeing odd juxtapositions of ideas helps to stimulate my own ideas and creativity. I worry that if I kept the notes in a highly-structured way, I might lose some of these benefits.

We've become such a multitasking society that just paying attention to the road doesn't seem to be that important anymore. I have to remind my kids all the time that that's what you're supposed to be doing in the car.

That's how I make work. Along the way, I take notes, I read about history and popular culture. Sometimes I act out things in the studio. I go back to my mother's hair salon so I can hear three voices going all at once. I pull inspiration from everything.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

Everyone says I drive like my grandfather, but that's not always a good thing because he didn't always watch the road because he'd talk to you and look at you. He was a deputy sheriff, a cop, for a long time. So he was always looking around, checking out other things, other than what's directly in front of him.

I normally try to drive carefully.

The way I see it is: You've got to take it to the limit, not over the limit, for sure, but you've got to take it to the limit with your driving style.

In life, I'm a guy who likes to drive a car quite fast, but I wear a seat belt at the same time.

Having my brain doing different work is helping me a lot in terms of retro-feeding from the other experiences. It makes me feel inspired, looking forward to the projects and wanting to work harder.

Imagination is strong in a man when that particular function of the brain which enables him to observe is roused to activity without any necessary excitement of the sense. Accordingly, we find that imagination is active just in proportion as our sense are not excited by external objects. A long period of solitude, whether in prison or in a sick room; quiet, twilight, darkness-these are the things that promote its activity; and under their influence it comes into play of itself.

I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good and original observation.

You know, I've written many of my songs while driving - which is against the law in many cases.

I'm widest awake as a writer doing something new, engaged in a process I'm not sure I can finish, generating at the edge of my powers. Some people bungee jump; I write.

When I'm taking the subway to my improv shows I will be writing in my notebook different actions that I see people doing on the train whether it's eating yogurt or looking at where their stop is, or tripping or holding a baby. It's not preparing scenes and ideas as much as it is stoking your brain to think observantly. Just to place observations in your head, so that they are available somewhere.

On rides you see things that trigger ideas. And most the time it's just not doing anything but riding ... letting it all go.

Reading activates and exercises the mind. Reading forces the mind to discriminate. From the beginning, readers have to recognize letters printed on the page, make them into words, the words into sentences, and the sentences into concepts. Reading pushes us to use our imagination and makes us more creatively inclined.

Innovation has a lot to do with your ability to recognise surprising and unusual phenomena.

Keep a note pad and pencil on your bedside table. Million-dollar ideas sometimes strike at 3 A.M.