Pankaj Mishra Quotes

That's the artist's job, really: continually setting yourself free, and giving yourself new options and new ways of thinking about things.

Original thinking migrates each day in search of nourishment.

Forget the boring old dictum, 'Write about what you know.' Instead, seek out an unknown yet knowable area of experience that's going to enhance your understanding of the world and write about that.

To be the kind of writer you want to be, you must first be the kind of thinker you want to be.

I'm always trying to do stuff I haven't done before or challenge myself so I'm not resting on my laurels all of the time because if I just found my little niche and never left it, I'd be pretty boring, I think.

I began to do this thing I do of giving myself a class every day, and trying to experiment and push further. I don't mean to say I knew everything, because I didn't, but I would do what I knew and then push beyond that and see what else I could find.

You never really stop learning. You have to experiment and reinvent life to sustain your interest.

I always start out with an idea, even a boring idea, that becomes a question I don't have answers to.

When you think outside of what you know, that brings out the best in you.

Every day I wake up and that’s my goal, to be on a constant quest for knowledge and do something different, being unique and being uncommon.

Learning. It's really the primary reason behind everything I do. Programming, entrepreneuring, writing.

A man's work is in danger of deteriorating when he thinks he has found the one best formula for doing it. If he thinks that, he is likely to feel that all he needs is merely to go on repeating himself . . . so long as a person is searching for better ways of doing his work, he is fairly safe.

Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.

At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find your inner motivation to seek for new ideas on your own.

The entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising our memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained in the same room.

The power of work, and the power of creativity can be your salvation.

At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you’ll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you’ll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you’ll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.

One sure-fire way to stay creative: force yourself to learn something new.

Ideas come from curiosity.

Sometimes things you write are messages to yourself. Even though I think my stuff has a particular voice because you are who you are, it's good to switch it up, professionally and personally. The dare to be great situation is always going to be the one that matters the most.

Write. Write every day. Write honestly. Write something that doesn’t exist, and you wish did. Read. Learn. Study. Watch people. Listen to what they say, listen to how they say it and listen to what they do not say. Surprise yourself. Scare yourself.

Our craft is all we have. So, we should keep it challenging and exciting. Else, there's no actual growth.

Part of our human nature is finding new ways of being.

The rules I sort of live by for my theater career, which I hope to live for my film career, is that if there's something that intrigues me or fascinates me, or I don't know how to do it, then I should do it.

I remember on my very first film, which Steven Soderberg executive-produced, he said, 'Try not to repeat yourself. Do things that scare you.' Even if it's a challenge, I want people to say that this guy tried this thing. Hopefully he learned from it.