Quotes About Imagination

Touching on universality is an important part of effective storytelling, but the problem with cliches is that they are tired and dull. And that's where writers must try to be artful.

Creativity is all around us, and some of the funniest, most beautiful, and touching moments happen when you least expect it.

You must be very creative in our business. Creating in this business is making something new, but it is also touching on something old.

In creating a new character, it's sometimes difficult to find a touchstone, a North Star that will always point you in the direction that character will travel.

For every SF reader of that period, Robert A. Heinlein was also a touchstone.

I got a bike when I was little, a BMX. I called it 'Fido Dido' after the tough little cartoon guy with spiked hair. I thought he was the coolest thing ever.

I always say it's a shame picture books get such a bad rep. Illustrations are tough to sell older kids on!

I think there's this idea that the depth of an actor's performance is built on tough times or horrible events or isolation, but I never found that. I figured that my imagination coupled with the story can get me anywhere.

I write books that seem more suitable for children, and that's OK with me. They are a better audience and tougher critics. Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think.

Of course when you toss a stick of dynamite at a cartoon character, he can come back to life again in the next frame. Getting the same effect with actors is going to be a lot tougher.

I never imagined as a kid that anybody could beat up 'Mr. Wonderful' Paul Orndorff because Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan convinced me he was the toughest guy, that Andre The Giant was bigger than life, that Hulk Hogan was amazing and dug down deep.

When I was in high school, I had binders with pictures of tour buses.

I design all my sets. With my tour and my album artwork, I co-design that with people who are better at drawing than me. But I've got a good imagination. I went to art school so I understand how to communicate my ideas.

I was always bossy as a kid. I made my friends do shows that I wrote and would take them on tour from house to house.

The best memories on tour are always of kids who tell me they are going to run back to their classrooms and start writing!

I never envisioned being a rock star. I envisioned the stage. I would draw and draw and draw the stage, or the tour bus. It was much simpler.

That's when we decided to stop in '66. Everyone thought we toured for years, you know, but we didn't. I joined in '62, and we'd finished touring in '66 to go into the studio where we could hear each other... and create any fantasy that came out of anybody's brain.

When I was a kid, I worked in the circus. It was a touring circus that was owned by a man named Terrell Jacobs. It was just one big tent, and he was a lion tamer. He didn't have any kids, but the bit was that I would dress up as his son in an identical outfit.

I guess something that I've noticed from American acts who had success in touring is more of an explanation as to their music. Which is I think quite funny. I think British acts might like to leave more to the imagination - maybe a bit more obscure perhaps - a bit more shy.

I played ACC and NCAA Tournament games in my backyard - these imaginary games - and when I finally got to experience it in real life, it was better than I could imagine.

I have to admit that talking authoritatively about my students' stories can make me feel, at times, like an astronaut who has just landed on a new planet and insists on giving guided tours to its inhabitants.

My mom used to take me to the theater to see the tours that would come through D.C., and I loved it. I loved it. I was absolutely enthralled by the theater and by that world.

Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.

I work on words, mostly, toward them being poetry or short stories, and then some of those become songs. They all find their place in the world, but they all start off in the same place. I'm always painting and drawing as well, and it's an ongoing creative assignment.