Maxwell Maltz Quotes

For imagination sets the goal picture which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of will, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.

You must first clearly see a thing in your mind before you can do it.

An object is not first imagined or thought about and then expected or willed, but in being actively expected it is imagined as future and in being willed it is thought.

My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings.

For me, the whole process involves envisioning this book in my head as I'm working.

Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives.

I write, having seen what's happening already in my head. I see it as a movie, and I'm just writing down what's happening in front of me.

I'm always seeing stuff and imagining scenes in my head when I'm making music.

I have to see the whole scene in my head before I go out and do it. Which I do. I will envision the entire scene before I shoot it.

Feel the power of your legs, hear the orchestra playing, see the audience - anything to make the image more real. The image has to be specific. You can't just say to yourself, 'I'll do my best.' You have to have a mental blueprint of that role in your mind.

I can't always reach the image in my mind... almost never, in fact... so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it.

When I start a film, I can sort of shut my eyes, sit somewhere quiet and imagine the movie finished. I can imagine the camera angles, I can even imagine the type of music. Without knowing the tune, I can imagine the type of music it needs to be.

Whatever you can think, you can create; just have a very clear vision... Once you have your snapshot, work on filling in the blanks to get to that place.

Before every shot, I go to the movies

You must first realize the thing completely in your mind. Then grasp the brush, fix your attention so that you see clearly what you wish to paint; start quickly, move the brush, follow straight what you see before you, as the buzzard swoops down when the hare jumps out. If you hesitate one moment, it is gone.

To see a thing clearly in the mind makes it begin to take form.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches. Use auto-suggestion, have faith, imagination and overcome fear and time is your opposite player as in checkerboard.

You can't really imagine every moment of a movie in the same way that you wouldn't expect a novelist to envision every sentence of his 800-page novel.

Usually I'm able to imagine something and it comes out as I imagined, more or less.

Mental pictures offer us an opportunity to practice new traits and attitudes, which otherwise we could not do. This is possible because again - your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and one that is vividly imagined.

[Visualisation] works most powerfully when you realize that it is already a reality on the unseen level. It's already there.

Some people find it easier to picture the stream of inspiration as being like radio waves of all sorts being broadcast at all times. With practice, we learn to hear the desired frequency on request. We tune in to the frequency we want.

When I write, I picture the characters a certain way in my head, and they're not like any actor or actress. It's almost hard for me to let go of my ideas as to the way they look.

Reading is a creative activity. You have to visualize the characters, you have to hear what the voices sound like.

Your imagination creates the inner picture that allows you to participate in the act of creation.