E. L. Doctorow Quotes

Of course creativity is a mystery. We don't know what drives it or what constitutes it. It's one of those things, like genius, you know it when you see it but it's impossible to define.

I consider creativity to be a more non-rational, subconscious thing. You have a relationship to your creativity - you can feed it with content, with some rational prodding and sleep and things like that, but the mechanisms by which your creativity work are largely unknown.

When I finished a song that I thought was good, I thought, I don't know where that came from, so I have no idea if I can do that again. I'm talking like, a hundred and fifty songs down the line. I still feel that.

You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't.

Authors from whom others steal should not complain, but rejoice. Where there is no game there are no poachers.

Stories come to me and I don't know where they come from, but afterwards I can look back and say, 'Oh yes, that's got a little bit of me, or a little bit of my own son in it'. That's where ideas come from.

I don't read much of what I write because I worry about unintentionally borrowing something.

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.

Most people wait for the muse to turn up. That's terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing.

Everybody knows that I don't have a muse. I'm not interested in that.

Writing is a funny thing. It's not like you're working on a schedule. It comes in fits and starts.

Whatever I'm writing comes organically out of my life.

When I am composing, I try to clear my mind of having to publish, or having to sell a book or find readers. That kind of thinking gets in the way.

For one person, organized files might be a crucial tool for creativity; another person finds inspiration in random juxtapositions.

As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine.

You find a lot of ideas from my shows in adverts now. I find it a compliment.

People often ask writers where they get their inspiration, and for me, the short answer is that I haven't a clue; I'm just grateful that I get them.

I don't know where my songs come from... If I knew, I'd know too much, more than we are allowed on this plane.

I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.

There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.

Any creator owes a debt to past creation.

But, yeah, I'm really happy when I'm writing. When I'm being creative and when I have something that I can put down. You know, if you go out and you overhear a conversation or you have a thought, you have a receptacle to go home and say, 'Oh, this would be great in this script.' Your antenna's out in a different way, and I love that time.

I don't really care who gets their inspiration from where, it's the end results that count.