Thought Capture Quotes

Moving and motion tends to make things pop up. But things pop up for me, really, at just odd intervals or at random times that aren't really convenient, so I'm a big fan of the voice memo recorder on my phone. That's the only way I can remember things.

Write down the thoughts and even more, write down a specific line. If you don't, it'll fly away forever.

Be a collector of good ideas. Keep a journal. If you hear a good idea, capture it, write it down. Don't trust your memory.

I keep a composition book with me at all times to write rhymes, to write down ideas, write down my thoughts, you know just so I don't forget any ideas.

The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up.

A spider lives inside my head Who weaves a strange and wondrous web Of silken threads and silver strings To catch all sorts of flying things, Like crumbs of thoughts and bits of smiles And specks of dried-up tears, And dust of dreams that catch and cling For years and years and years...

The camera can photograph thought. It's better than a paragraph of sweet polemic.

The camera can capture thought in a way that's quite surprising and shocking. You can become very simple and minimal in your work and communicate a lot with just a finger or an eyebrow, or a look, or a glance.

To me one of the amazing technologies of writing is the way it can listen in on thoughts. I don't feel that that's natural to other art forms in the same way.

I think that perhaps if I had had to slow down the ideas so that I could capture them on paper I might have stifled some of them.

The invention of photography has dealt a mortal blow to the old modes of expression, in painting as well as in poetry, where automatic writing, which appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, is a true photography of thought. Since a blind instrument now assured artists of achieving the aim they had set themselves up to that time, they now aspired, not without recklessness, to break with the imitation of appearances.

You can't compartmentalise everything but the more you do that the easier it is. Keeping a notebook is a good way of dealing with it. You can rest from any thoughts if you put them down on paper.

Usually, I walk around and think about things. When I come across a thought that makes me laugh, I write it down.

No idea is so antiquitated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not some day be antiquitated . . . to seize the flying thought before it escapes us is our only touch with reality.

You write a thing down because you're hoping to get a hold on it.

Write down everything you can think of, no matter how stupid it seems. I always write down my thoughts throughout the day. Sometimes good things come out of it, and I'll find an idea to develop into a song, so my best advice is to try and draw inspiration from everyday things.

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.

Look sharply after your own thoughts. They come unlooked for, like a new bird seen on your trees, and, if you turn to your usual task, disappear; and you shall never find that perception again; never, I say-but perhaps years, ages, and I know not what events and worlds my lie between you and its return.

I'm the guy that gets up at three in the morning to jot down an entire sheet of lyrics for something that won't be recorded for six months. You have to get it down when you can, because thoughts are fluid.

I try to photograph people's spirits and thoughts. As to the soul-taking by the photographer, I don't feel I take away, but rather that the sitter and I give to each other. It becomes an act of mutual participation.

Note-taking is important to me: a week's worth of reading notes (or "thoughts I had in the shower" notes) is cumulatively more interesting than anything I might be able to come up with on a single given day.

If I'm thinking or feeling something, I have to record it somewhere. If I don't, I worry the thought will be lost and I'll never get it back again. I never self-edit and I don't write in one place or in a special book.

Ideas? My head is full of them, one after the other, but they serve no purpose there. They must be put down on paper, one after the other.

If something pops in my mind and it's easy, I write it.

I keep a notebook of ideas, and sometimes ideas form in your head that you just have to write down, or you'll forget them.