Quotes About Inspiration

I think one of things is that all fantasy it seems to me works the way your brain basically works. This is perhaps a startling concept, but I think it's true.

When I first saw Dick Gregory on television, growing up in Queens, it was startling and amazing, because nobody else was doing what he was doing.

I mark the reading of 'Look Homeward, Angel' as one of the pivotal events of my life. It starts off with the single greatest, knock-your-socks-off first page I have ever come across in my careful reading of world literature.

You have freedom, so you have to make choices - and at the point when I make a choice, the building starts to look like a Frank Gehry building. It's a signature.

It starts with my family. That drives me every day, just seeing them smiling.

Writing is a funny thing. It's not like you're working on a schedule. It comes in fits and starts.

An icon painter starts not with Jesus Christ but by finding earth and rubbing. Now what is earth, what are you rubbing in directing?

I don't know how to explain it, but when you're working on something constantly, and you're digging in deep, things kind of fall in, and you grab them, and you're like, 'That one!' and 'That thing!' and it starts to build something right.

When the business starts shaping the art, or the delivery of the art, then it's not right.

Everything I make starts very personally.

There are a lot of things I can take, and a few that I can't. What I can't take is when my older brother, who's everything that I want to be, starts losing faith in things. I saw that look in your eyes last night. I don't ever want to see that look in your eyes again.

I wrote 'Black Deutschland' very quickly one summer, probably because I had a lot of it in pieces and fragments sitting around over the years as false starts or notes.

So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go.

Every song I write, including 'Too Close,' always starts on the guitar.

I like when the song starts to take over and you feel like you have to dance more than write.

A chair, it's like a sculpture. It starts as a thought and then becomes an idea, something I might think about for years. When the time is right, I express it on paper, usually as a simple line in space. Finally, it takes shape.

The way I do it is there's never recording 'sessions.' One finishes, the next one starts. It's just continuous.

I believe it is only when one comes out of adversity, that one starts to see real beauty.

I go to bed late. My mind starts going at night - that's when those creative juices begin flowing.

There are two kinds of sculptures. There's the kind that subtracts: Michelangelo starts with a block of marble and chips away. And then there is the kind that adds, building with clay, piling it on. The way I write novels is to keep piling on and piling on and piling on.

Shamir and Nasir were my homeboys. They were from Philly and they're Muslim. I'm not a Muslim, but I liked their names. They were like, 'your name starts with an N, so just come up with Nahmir.' So I just put 'Nah' in front of 'Amir.'

As business moves forward, you realize that God has his hand on the whole business and that he brought people to you who are like-minded. It starts with faith.

Frank called me one day and said, 'I have an idea for a movie, why don't you come over and I'll tell you?' So I went over and we sat down and he said, 'This picture starts in heaven'. That shook me.

The hair and makeup is very important in a fashion picture. When I create a look for a girl, it starts with the makeup. Sometimes it takes an entire day to find the look.