Quotes About Imagination

It was at this point, visualizing too vividly another Mr. Kaplan in the class, that anxious little lines had crept around Mr. Parkhill´s eyes.

Art presupposes nature, whereas nature doesn't presuppose art. Man's creative abilities, which are more admirable than any of his products, are not themselves produced my man: the genius of Shakespeare was not the work of Shakespeare. Nature supplies not only the materials but also the models for all arts;

If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one's life, without seeing oneself in the mirror of literature?

Do not be a magician - be magic!

I cannot understand why my arm is not a lilac tree.

As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder.

If your sense of humor was shaped by Looney Tunes, you're set for life.

One end of the spectrum of fantastical thinking is labeled "crackpot," and the other "visionary.

Thomas Edison is often said to have advised, "To have a great idea, have a lot of them.

The lesson is that, though we expect our best thinking time to be when we are fresh, our elastic thinking capacity may be highest when we feel "burnt out." That's good to know when scheduling your tasks—you could be better at generating imaginative ideas if you do that kind of thinking after working on a chore that involves a period of tedious, focused effort that strains your powers of concentration.

the elasticity of our thinking allows us to move beyond the existing world of our senses and invent new concepts.

but dreams and myths are expressions of the human heart.

Doing time creates a demented darkness of my own imagination.... Doing time does this thing to you. But, of course, you don't do time. You do without it. Or rather, time does you. Time is a cannibal that devours the flesh of your years day by day, bite by bite.

I can barely make out my own handwriting in the semidarkness, but no matter. I don't know if anyone will ever read this. Maybe someone will. If so, that someone can only be you. I try to imagine who you might be and where you might be reading this. Are you comfortable? Do you feel secure? Let me write these words to you, then, personally. I greet you, my friend. Thanks for your time and attention, even your curiosity. Welcome to my world. Welcome to my iron lodge. Welcome to Leavenworth.

Visionaries are those in the field of art and science who recognize novel patterns. They see beauty before the rest of us do.

You can't up-up-and-away in creativity and innovation without spending down-on-the-ground time in the muck and the mire.

The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.

Why does the eye see more clearly when asleep than the imagination when awake?

The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.

To become an artist you have to be curious.

The eye sees a thing more clearly in dreams, than the imagination awake.

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

If the painter wishes to see beauties that charm him, it lies in his power to create them, and if he wishes to see monstrosities that are frightful, ridiculous, or truly pitiable, he is lord and God thereof.

And you who wish to represent by words the form of man and all the aspects of his membrification, relinquish that idea. For the more minutely you describe the more you will confine the mind of the reader, and the more you will keep him from the knowledge of the thing described. And so it is necessary to draw and to describe.