Quotes About Creativity

When I was younger - I don't do this too much now - but sometimes if I couldn't sleep, I would lie in bed and imagine all the characters I've played at a dinner table together.

There are certainly moments in the story room where you watch the movie die on the table. You put A next to B, and suddenly none of it lines up anymore. We feel that all the time. It's a terrible feeling.

A single is really quick, man. You can get it out, and in two months have it on your merch table. And albums can take a really long time. But when you get done with an album, it's a lot more fulfilling.

I was in 'Rent,' for God's sake. The closest we came to stunts was dancing on a table.

My mother was a very big inspiration. She loved fashion. I loved art in school, and I was very good at drawing. I could sit at the table forever and just dream up collections and draw.

Success is created in studio apartments and garages, at kitchen tables, and in classrooms across the nation, not in government conference rooms in Washington.

It was exactly an assembly line. You could look into infinity down these rows of drawing tables.

I was the kid who was drawing on tables or removing the legs of furniture.

So when it was my turn to start developing projects, I knew the writers I wanted to work with, and I had met every head of studio, every executive and a lot of producers. I started finding things, little crumbs off other people's tables that I would make my own.

There were many years when I was hand-to-mouth and didn't know how I was gonna make rent. I've done every job under the sun, from busing tables, temping, and working in factories to SAT prep and detailing cars. So to be able to make a living where all I do is write is absolutely liberating.

Our world is enriched when coders and marketers dazzle us with smartphones and tablets, but, by themselves, they are just slabs. It is the music, essays, entertainment and provocations that they access, spawned by the humanities, that animate them - and us.

I'm just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I'm inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

I'm always writing something. There's always some structure sitting around someplace. There's always things on the computer, things scratched on score paper, legal tablets full of lyrics. It's never not buzzing around me all the time. I'm always doing it.

When the computer and tablets are all about playing games, that's not interesting to me.

Frazzled and delirious, as I've just finished a new book of stories. I feel like Moses staggering down the mountainside with the tablets of stone.

Music is the only place that I can have no taboos. In real life I have a lot of taboos, and I can't talk about everything easily.

Within TG, we liberated the use of the lyric forever. There was no longer a taboo on what could be discussed in the conceptual format of a song.

Masaba has helped me break some taboos, like wearing off-white with white or sneakers with a fancy gown. She's given me the confidence to carry off stuff, which looks nice.

In feature animation, it's kind of taboo to make a movie that's more cartoony. But I never really believed that.

But 'Brigsby Bear' was really important to me, because I wanted to tackle something dramatic.

I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.

With 'Decoded,' the goal is to just keep pushing forward and challenging ourselves to tackle important subjects in creative and funny ways.

That's another thing, we made up games. We didn't have equipment. When it snowed, we would play slow motion tackle football. We would play hockey, but we wouldn't skate. We just made things up. I loved doing that.

Don't hold back in your writing. Take risks. Go ahead and tackle that crazy idea that you think will never fly, because that may be the one that makes you stand out from the crowd. Keep pushing the envelope.