Quotes About Imagination

Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted.

There is a lushness to how my mind works.

Sometimes ideas are coming so fast that I have to stop doing one song to get another. But I don't forget the first one. If it works, it will always be there. It's like the truth: it will find you and lift you up. And if it ain't right, it will dissolve like sand on the beach.

Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn't mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It's about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.

One of the dangers of science fiction, particularly bad science fiction, is that you have these scenes where the characters turn to a blackboard and start explaining how this faster-than-light drive works, or something like that. We never really have those conversations in real life. That's not part of the way we interact as human beings.

It is quite amazing how hard the subconscious works when it is made to understand that this life is not a rehearsal, there is no safety net and no assurance of any final closure. It is also quite appalling to realize how catatonic the imagination can become when we hedge our bets, opt for the safer direction at every fork in the path.

Children of five and upwards write asking if it's my own hair, whether I'm married, how old I am, what's inside a Dalek and how Tardis works. Nearly all of them send me drawings of Daleks and incidents from stories.

Imagination is a pretty powerful thing, and when you're in the moment and you're riding a train and you're asked to look scared, I don't know, it just kind of works out. And in those moments where you're actually doing some of the stunts, then it's not so hard at all, because there's an actual fear there.

In my own life, I share my home with works by artists like Elizabeth Murray, Martin Puryear, Jackie Windsor and so many others, whose creativity is clear and fresh and compelling; the works break through the usual, and they inspire creativity; they inspire responses and understanding.

Everything for me is visual. That's just how my head works.

I am an artist who works with Lego.

Writing, when it works, one needs to access whatever it is that creates dreams.

Talent works, genius creates.

If you're a doctor, what do you promise to do? First, do no harm. If your operating philosophy is do no harm, that's not a call to imagination. Not only that, if I'm a patient, I don't want your imagination. I want what works.

When I say, 'I can't stay long, I'm in-between meals,' that plays differently on the radio than it does in person. So I have to pick material that works because the words are funny, not just because of the images.

I visualize things in my mind before I have to do them. It's like having a mental workshop.

Since I was a child, I've been playing children. When I was little, I was the kid that you'd hire to do the reading or workshop of your new material.

I collect puppet stuff. I have a puppet workshop in my garage. I was looking for any opportunity to be able to get very creatively involved in that world.

One of the ideas that was developed at MIT in a workshop was, imagine this pipe, and you've got valves, solenoid valves, taps, opening and closing. You create like a water curtain with pixels made of water. If those pixels fall, you can write on it: you can show patterns, images, text.

I remember when I was in graduate school and someone in workshop would say, 'I'm going to bring in a chapter of my novel.' The thought that someone could think they'd write a whole long thing... I could only see twelve pages ahead. But then I realized that if you could see twelve more after that, you can start.

I tell my workshop students, 'I want you to think of yourselves as artists. Then, when you're writing, you're painting, you're crafting, you're making a design, you're sculpting, you're creating choreography, sound, a sound script.'

I never had the exposure to techniques and so forth that children have today with art workshops, but I always had crayons and pencils and still have work going right back to when I was five or six years old.

That's the beauty of the acting world. You can play so many different characters who know and do so many things that you have no idea about as yourself. So I'm a big fan of workshops and classes and learning new things because you can always apply it. It's your little supply bag of creativity. Keep filling it up.

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.