Quotes About Creativity

It was always in the back of my mind while we were working on the first year of 'Rookie' that we'd do a print version at some point.

I write speculative fiction, and in my view, speculative fiction is really just a very intense version of the work of literature in general.

I made little Super 8 extravaganzas when I was a kid, the first being my own version of 'Romeo and Juliet,' and where I played all the parts except for Juliet.

Sometimes I have a melody in my head; sometimes it's just a verse. I read lines from a book or movies that I watch and grab a few quotes and start writing on paper. From there, I record a really rough version and work on the song.

Don't do anyone else's version of a hit song - it's gonna sound terrible. You just have to do what you do well and crank it up to 11.

Have you seen the Broadway version of 'The Lion King?' Go and see it. That's where the future of musical is.

It's really rare in TV not to think, 'Well, I've seen a version of this before.'

I only write about stuff that sort of happens to me, and then I blow it up into a much funnier version.

My first drafts are always terrible, and I hate them, but the process for me is all about writing the bad version until it tells you what the good version is. And then you write that.

The very first film I ever made, when I was seven years old, when I got my hands on a camcorder, was a remake of 'Poltergeist,' which I hadn't seen yet because my parents wouldn't allow me to. But I made my own version of it, and it starred my brother in a bed sheet.

I think once 'Empire' hit, there was a lot of bad black TV that followed, because we work in the business of hit-seekers and copycats, so they're like, 'Oh this is a show about black people; this is about music, OK let's do a version of that.' And, of course, it doesn't work because it's not organic.

I am always searching for something different or something fresh, something hasn't been done. But the truth is, at the end of the day, we're all sort of retelling something. We're doing a version of something that's already been done.

I'm a big believer in puking out all your thoughts in a single sitting and getting some version of the work down, because the alternative just prolongs the agony. The first draft is hideous and ajskdlkdfksjdfslfjk, but it's just a map for where the big blocks go.

What I do when I act and direct is I do a small version, go a little bigger, do a medium one, an over-the-top one, and then even bigger than that. I'll do six readings of the line. And they're not all the same. Just so I know if I was wrong about what I should have done, I luckily have this more subtle version.

I've jokingly painted some of my favorite collectors as black men, so there's a really great portrait of David LaChapelle, the photographer - my version of him - that's in his collection.

My kids are good artists, and they do a pretty good version of Dad in their caricatures.

I believe there's a platonic ideal for every book that is written, like there's the perfect version of the book somewhere in the ether, and my job is to find what that book is through my editing.

The more you see somebody else's version of something, the harder it is to make it your own.

When anyone pitches me - and I've heard it a million times: 'It's the black Seinfeld,' or, 'It's the new version of something that's already been successful' - I immediately shut it off. I won't ever entertain doing 'the new version of such-and-such.'

The beautiful despair is never fruitless. It keeps you going. Like when I first heard Bob Dylan do 'Things Have Changed,' or any time I see any work of art really beautifully done, like Michelangelo's 'The David' or that movie 'Lost in Translation' - it inspires me to try and find my own version of that.

I love the idea of not being able to afford something and just making your own version or buying a cheap knock-off instead.

The idea of taking a brand that already exists and making a really poor-looking version of it, with acrylic or puffy paint, is really aesthetically pleasing to my eyes and also funny.

I think the greatest of people that have ever been in society, they were never versions of someone else. They were themselves.

When you make an animated film, you make it over and over and over. We almost do ten versions of the film.