Elif Batuman Quotes

The element of truth in the concept of genius is to be sought in the object, in what is open, not confined by repetition.

Coming up with something new and original is so exciting.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

What gets me excited is the original principle.

Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how', while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why'. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.

We will always have more to discover, more to invent, more to understand and that's much closer to art and literature than any science.

Each additional idea is a gift to the future. Each additional idea producer is a source of wealth for future generations.

Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

I think we're giving people something new that people didn't know was out there before.

Knowledge comes from the past, so it's safe. It is also out of date. It's the opposite of originality... Experience is the opposite of being creative.

Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration.

I think we always move from imitation to assimilation to innovation, but I can't name you 20 people outside those we've already recognized who ever got to point three: innovation.

What makes our world so fascinating is that continuously there are novel and creative ideas spurring people to leave old ways and try something new.

The truth is, it is hard to know where ideas come from.

When you're writing something that is truly original it takes time.

I get excited to create things that don't exist in the same world as 'Hamilton' because that world is really well done and doesn't need me to inform it anymore.

You can't invent something you have no epistemological access to. In a way, it's all recombination.

Write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

In my basic courses I have always tried to develop discovery and invention which, in my opinion, are the criteria of creativeness.

Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you.

Truth is the nursing mother of genius.

...to invent is to discover that we know not, and not to recover or resummon that which we already know

It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better.

In the light, we read the inventions of others; in the darkness we invent our own stories.

You make something from things that have happened and from things that exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, and you make something through your invention that is truer than anything true and alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.