Eric Ries Quotes

Good and bad ideas both come from the same fountain of speculation and experiment.

I'm not a craftsman of graphics or art or film. I'm more of an idea generator and manufacturer.

I use doodling for a variety of reasons: I use it to get clarity around a concept, I use it to relax, I use it to communicate ideas with others and get their refinement of them, I use it to map complex systems for companies, I use it to run innovation games for business, I use it to get insight on something puzzling me.

If I was going to write something, I'd need to stop for three months and just see if I had any thoughts in there.

I have multiple ideas per day, all the time. The vast majority of these are completely idiotic. Usually, I just sit on the idea for several months. And if I have not decided that it's idiotic, then it's... might be a good idea.

Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.

I only come up with things when I am talking to myself, which I do constantly. The sidewalk and the subway are the best places for this. I speak at full volume and then laugh at myself if I like what I just said.

I like ideas. I find them more exciting than human behavior for the most part.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen, bad ones are free.

I do think that I'm a big believer in having an idea or having ideas and just tucking them away in the back of your brain. Even if you aren't consciously thinking of them, I think they simmer. You're working on them, even if you don't know you're working on them, and I think having something in your head for a while is a valuable thing.

Generating ideas isn't some mystical talent that you have to be born with: it's a skill you can develop.

Creative thinking - in terms of idea creativity - is not a mystical talent. It is a skill that can be practised and nurtured.

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.

I have never had too much trouble for creative ideas to spring up in my mind.

It's really about living in your head... just looking out at the world, then going back into your head and tossing around a lot of ideas and coming out with something interesting to say.

Whenever I start a project, I have a broad range of possibilities.

Recognize that killing a weak idea early is valuable.

One rule of invention: before you can invent it, you have to imagine it.

I'll stop when I run out of ideas.

I have a creative mind, so if I listen to the song, I have an idea, I thought of five or six months ago, I'll bring it back into the playing field. I can tweak ideas or make them better. Just come up with something and then we go from there.

You can never discard too many bad ideas.

I have lots of ideas. Trouble is, most of them suck.

If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away.

Ideas are floating like fish. Desire for an idea is like a bait on a hook. If you desire an idea, it pulls and it makes a kind of a bait. Ideas will come swimming up. And you don't know them until they enter the conscious mind. And then bingo! There it is! You know it instantly. And then more come in. If you go fishing for ideas, a lot of ideas will just pop in. And one of them will make you fall in love.

When I am kicking around show ideas, or really any idea, usually an image comes to me. I don't really start with a character or a logline like, "What if the electricity turned off?"