Creative Discussion Quotes

Since I'm not a journalist, I talk about issues that encourage an interchange of ideas through conversation while also being entertaining.

There's always somebody you can call and go have lunch with and just talk out an idea. And it's great, because I need that. It's part of my writing process, to early on sit people down and say, 'Alright, this film I'm working on...' and I tell them everything I have.

I like hearing from everybody and not just my co-screenwriters or producers. For example, while on set, I find it valuable to turn to my PA and ask, 'What do you think? Is this scene working? Do you like what you see? You got any ideas for that line there because that idea isn't working for me.'

... And we talk it out. Lately, I've had Roy Thomas come in, and he sits and makes notes while we discuss it. Then he types them up, which gives us a written synopsis. Originally - I have a little tape recorder - I had tried taping it, but then I found no one on staff has time to listen to the tape again later. But this way he makes notes, types it quickly, I get a carbon, the artist gets a carbon ... so we don't have to worry that we'll forget what we've said.

At Pixar, of course, we have all these people, and they're just used to our process now where it's a discussion; it's a discovery. It's not individual artists going and fussing off by themselves in isolation and then handing their work in.

Disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.

Conflicting views and contrasting ideas are the essence of all great debates throughout history, from the Greeks to the Oxford Union Debating Society. Today, we turn to television for the creative clash of ideas on matters that touch our lives.

I'd love to get a chance to talk shop with Joss Whedon. That's pretty high up there on the list.

As an actor, I have always felt, everything is available in the script. If there is anything you feel the script lacks, you can have a discussion with the director and point out those.

So we can sit with Lee Unkrich and Andrew Stanton, and all the other folks and experience what the film is going to be like. And then we go away into a room, and we talk about what worked and what didn't. And then we take all of those findings and we do that whole process again.

If I could hang out with Jimi Hendrix, it wouldn't be over dinner.

I love to argue and share bright ideas in a rehearsal room, and when you live with somebody who is working on the same show, the delight can go on all evening!

People sort of imagine Chris Morris and me sitting somewhere dark, with dripping taps and chilling background music. In fact, we like to sit on his roof in the sunshine - and there's an endless amount of just sitting there, going, 'So, erm, er, what shall we do?'

Before I ever put anything on paper, Jerry and I would talk back and forth.

I meet Susan [Saradon], and she was amazing. We sit down to go through the script [Thelma & Louise]. I swear, I think it was page one - she says, "So my first line, I don't think we need that line. Or we could put it on page two. Cut this ..." And I was just like ... My jaw was to the ground.

I love the idea of the literary salons in France where artists and writers would all come and talk and drink absinthe.

I love having that creative discussion where, at the end of the day, you both feel better for having done it. Maybe it's a typically Jewish thing, where you sort of go at each other.

Here's what is exciting about sharing ideas with others: If you share a new idea with ten people, they get to hear it once and you get to hear it ten times.

An hour's conversation on literature between two ardent minds with a common devotion to a neglected poet is a miraculous road to intimacy.

Songwriting is a give-and-take process, and it can lead to some good, healthy debates.

They always find new ways of talking about my movies.

A film is not something that can be made over the phone or Skype. Creative people meet, spend time together, and then come up with something.

We sat around on a hotel balcony with a bottle of wine and tried to figure out how you would go about blowing up a planet. That's the kind of conversations science fiction writers have when they get together. We don't talk about football or anything like that.

I'm especially interested in what I call practitioner criticism, which is when people who practice an art form start writing about it on blogs. I think that's an immensely important development. I want to see much, much more of that. People who make music who are verbally articulate. And not all musicians are verbally articulate. But those who are should be encouraged to write about what they do and their perception of what other people do. It makes the discourse smarter.

I had a fascination with the back side of the business, and the creative process always fascinated me. Vince gave me an opportunity in '98 to sit in the production meetings. He would talk creative with me, and we had this creative rapport.