I don't know how often I can discuss one incident in my entire life, but I'll continue to do that.
Insomnia’s different,” I said. It was hard to explain this to people. “You know the light that comes on when you open the refrigerator door? Just imagine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door. That’s what it’s like in my head. The light stays on.
A book is meant not only to be read, but to haunt you, to importune you like a lover or a parent, to be in your teeth like a piece of gristle.
I said, ‘There’s one idea I’ve been carrying in my hip pocket for 35 years. It’s Woodrow Wilson.’
As perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me: all things leave me: You remain.
As a creative person you just get an idea in your head, and sometimes you just can't shake it off.
Sometimes you get ensnared by an idea, and it's what I call 'the sticky burr': You go hiking, and a burr sticks to you, and that's the film you're going to make.
The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.
Once you get a character, you lock it in your heart - it's there.
The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
An obsession is where something will not leave your mind.
The right idea is the one you can't stop thinking about; the one that's in your head first thing in the morning.
A pretty girl is like a melody. That haunts you night and day.
It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.
You're burned into my mind forever. There is nothing, nothing in this world that will ever change that.
