Barack Obama Quotes

For every young person I meet, I learn an idea.

Somebody can say they don't understand why somebody drifts. But I've always found people who drift interesting, 'cause it shows me the game's not stagnant in their own head. They're thinking.

Research has been called good business, a necessity, a gamble, a game. It is none of these - it's a state of mind.

I think a critical part of being successful in our industry is having a beginner's mind

People don't care to read what they already think or what any people think - they know all that well enough. They want to know what they ought to think.

I've come up with my own cure for a closed mind: try it once, and see.

How much you discipline your mind to step out of its routines and look into new ways of doing things that you haven't yet adopted, is what will determine your economic potential.

Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success.

As a writer, you owe it to yourself not to get stuck in a rut of looking at the world in a certain way.

You have to really use your imagination to refresh your daily life.

Do everyday things in a new way to get the brain thinking in new ways.

Engagement with young people is always a refreshing break with routine. It's also a reminder of how we need to constantly keep our thinking agile and unencumbered by traditional rules.

I think young people ought to seek the experience that is going to knock them off center.

I think that other people covering my work is really exciting... Im really open to that kind of thing because I think interpretation is an art form.

I think anybody incapable of changing his mind is crazy.

I think we are able to keep active provided we approach our lives with creativity. I think the mere fact that we keep doing is self-creating.

When you're 21 you think, "Old people sound like this. Old people think like this." I don't think my ideas about aging and about eternal life changed that much, but it became more poignant to me as I did get older and I could better imagine, as you sort of inch closer to death every day, why legacy, more than aging, becomes important to people.

My direction as a person working in film has been to never get comfortable with anything I was doing. At the time that I decided to do action films, people were telling me, "Well, you can't do it. You're not that type. It's not going to work." And so obviously that made me think, "Well, that's not comfortable. Maybe I should try it. What can I do with it?" So I did that, and I'm glad I did it. I'll probably do it again, and I did other kinds of things that seemed like challenges for me, because I like being on the high wire.

When I was going through those very fast changes, I think it was terribly important to me that I was seen to be inventive. I think that was the characteristic of my work that I wanted people to see.

When you think outside of what you know, that brings out the best in you.

A confused mind is one that is open to the possibility of change.

Invite people into your life who don't look or act like you. You might find they challenge your assumptions and make you grow.

Ideas come from everything

In the mind of the beginner, there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there are few.

There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.