Miranda July Quotes

I don't know where the ideas come from, and it's terrifying. They seem to be absolute flukes. When I was in my 20s, I'd walk around with a notebook all the time and make sure I wrote down anything that occurred to me. Now I'm just hoping that some sort of event will descend on me.

When I'm looking for an idea, I'll do anything--clean the closet, mow the lawn, work in the garden.

Sometimes you run out of ideas, just like if you are a writer or whatever. Then you just have to wait around for something to inspire you or look for something to inspire you.

I've never been able to develop a movie over several years, and keep coming back to it and adding to it. I get excited by the spark of an idea, and if I can't go make that, there's another idea that comes along that I get excited about. It has to happen quickly, in order for it to happen, at all.

In my mind, I'm doing everything, but in reality, I'm doing very, very little. You come up with one idea, one moment, one line that leads to something and you feel like it's easy. And then, you sit back and think there would be no show without that.

I have a number of vague ideas where I just have the core or kernel of the idea. I feel like I need some time for my mind to fill up again. I feel empty. Right now.

In general, I don't know when inspiration will pop up.

People ask me, 'What's your next film?' And I never know.

When people ask me where I get my ideas, I lie. I tell them I draw inspiration from the news, the world, my dreams. Or I joke and say that I steal from other writers. I lie because I don't know where ideas come from, and I'm afraid if I look too hard, they'll stop coming.

For me, between "Reference" and "Sketching & Conceptualizing" is the "Get the Hell Out of the Studio" step. I most often NEED to shut off the computer, push myself back from my desk and escape the studio space to let possible ideas percolate in my gray matter before committing anything to paper or digital imagery as a sketch or a concept.

Sometimes ideas just come to me. Other times I have to sweat and almost bleed to make ideas come. It's a mysterious process, but I hope I never find out exactly how it works.

Where do ideas come from? Ideas come from other ideas.

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.

Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I ­always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something.

Ideas reflect the moment, and so you have to use them. If you store ideas, they wither.

I've often hesitated in beginning a project because I've thought, 'It'll never turn out to be even remotely like the good idea I have as I start.' I could just 'feel' how good it could be. but I decided that, for the present, I would create the best way I know how and accept the ambiguities.

I can't really say - if I've run out of ideas until I've had my next set of ideas.

I tend to [have] a lot of ideas but then just leave them in that infant form and kind of move on.

In the shower, with the hot water coming down, you've left the real world behind, and very frequently things open up for you. It's the change of venue, the unblocking the attempt to force the ideas that's crippling you when you're trying to write.

I don't believe in writer's block. There are good days when you're writing and less good days. I've learned that if it's not happening to walk away and return later. I doodle a lot and often get my best ideas with a pencil in my hand while I'm doodling. The problem is, sometimes I lose my doodles and that's bad!

I feel like I have a lot of novel ideas, but they often come up while I'm already in the process of working on a book. You have to watch out with the slutty new idea.

Every morning between 9 and 12 I go to my room and sit before a piece of paper. Many times, I just sit for three hours with no ideas coming to me. But I know one thing. If an idea does come between 9 and 12 I am there ready for it.

If I get ideas independently of the act of writing, they never really fit. So for me, there's no hanging out, waiting for inspiration.

I cannot face the idea of life without work. What would one do when ideas failed or words refused to come? It is impossible not to shudder at the thought.

When you put off a task, you buy yourself time to engage in divergent thinking rather than foreclosing on one particular idea.