I don’t know whose brilliant idea that was, but it wasn’t mine, that’s for sure.
The fact is the human race is not only slow about borrowing valuable ideas--it sometimes persists in not borrowing them at all.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
You think you have this great idea that everyone's going to come join, but that's not how it works.
I made a conscious decision not to tell anyone in my life. Now I tell people - don't tell anyone your idea until you have invested enough of yourself in it that you are not going to turn back. When a person has an idea at that conception moment it is the most vulnerable - one negative comment could knock you off course.
Whenever you have a good idea, it's inevitable some people will criticize it and deny it. Some people will try to prove it's wrong.
I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down. As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it.
It often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find they don't work, so I have to give it up.
I have these ideas that people go 'Oh, that's cool. I'd pay to see it, but I'm not gonna give you $25 million.'
There are times when I've had ideas walking down the street that I thought were great, and the minute I got onstage, I would think of them and go, 'Wow, that would never work,' even before I did it in front of the audience.
In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.
When anyone pitches me - and I've heard it a million times: 'It's the black Seinfeld,' or, 'It's the new version of something that's already been successful' - I immediately shut it off. I won't ever entertain doing 'the new version of such-and-such.'
When an idea is not robust enough to stand expression in simple terms, it is a sign that it should be rejected.
Despite the fact that I had a writing background, they didn't want to accept whatever ideas I had as a writer.
Actually, that issue of 'Don't be evil' is probably the number one reason we throw out ideas.
It's hard for me to know. I'll think, 'I really brought off my ideas, it's great,' and no one sparks to it
By the time I have clarified a thought, I no longer want to think it.
All scientists know of colleagues whose minds are so well equipped with the means of refutation that no new idea has the temerity to seek admittance. Their contribution to science is accordingly very small.
I'd rather say no and have said no and do say no often. I walk away from projects if it doesn't feel right; if it's not the right team of people pulling in together or if the script isn't right. It could be a great idea but the script doesn't work.
As creatives, it's a hard thing to push, to make something you're truly excited about, especially if you've written 100 different concepts and they keep getting shot down.
The fear of criticism is at the bottom of the destruction of most ideas which never reach the planning and action stage.
Stated clearly enough, an idea may cancel itself out.
I find that discussing an idea out loud is often the way to kill it stone dead.
When I first got pitched on Uber, I thought it was the dumbest idea ever.
As a producer, it starts when I talk about privacy and silence. It starts before anybody believes in it. And I think that's, you have to have a real sense of self, and in order to push things through. And so often, what's interesting, is how many people dismiss an idea that eventually everybody [gloms] onto. So to me it's, that's what I mean by hard.
I spent 90 percent of every day saying no to dopey ideas.
