Danny Boyle Quotes

Once in a while, I do these things that would make the 10-year old version of me laugh. I don't know why. You've got to do something a little bit immature. I'm surprised at how often those are my best ideas.

Poetry is innocent, not wise. It does not learn from experience, because each poetic experience is unique.

Talent does whatever it wants to do. Genius does only what it can.

I went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that's what I got back to.

I actually found not having a routine was inspiration.

I'm so happy when someone does something original, and there's no focus group or planning committee. If the cinema doesn't get an injection of that once in a while, we're in trouble.

Maybe you have a particular type of sound you want to go for, but if you really want to be original, there's no real recipe for that. For me it's just about letting it come to you... if you can let your head clear out, then almost anything is available.

Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, and all flock to their aid.

Creativity doesn't follow titles. It just comes from where it comes from.

Here's the truth you have to wrestle with: the reason that art (writing, engaging, leading, all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can't tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there'd be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map. Don't you hate that? I love that there's no map.

I try never to focus on the radio, just find great songs, find emotion and just write the best songs you can. I think when you get fixated on trying to do something too accurate, it becomes more washed out and less what you intended it to be. So I think each time the challenge for me is to try and reinvent a little bit.

I think making a movie or a record, the best things happen by accident - and those end up being the magic. Every time I've followed my gut it's been better than when I've tried to do what I was supposed to do.

Some of the screen's best moments were realized because a director went against all reason, all logic. No matter how incredible a story seems, it can be made credible. If you feel an insane idea strongly enough, you've usually got something.

When I get my hands on painting materials I don't give a damn about other people's painting... every generation must start again afresh.

Most songs I write are spur-of-the-moment-type things. I have to be spontaneous. If not, songwriting can bore me. There is no pre-design or idea of what I am going to do when I go into the studio. It's all like that for me. I could go in and write two or three songs in an eight-hour session. You can't over-think songs. You just can't.

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

Usually I like to improvise. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the piece, I like to improvise because I think it brings certain freshness and a reality to it, as long as it doesn't go too far out of the box.

I think young artists are always inspiring because they are coming at worlds from a different point of view.

I don't follow any system. All the laws you can lay down are only so many props to be cast aside when the hour of creation arrives.

I never know what I'm going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I'm just the middleman.

There was a beautiful time in the beginning when I just did it and didn't analyze the consequences, but I think that time ends in everyone's work.

There are no original ideas. There are only original people.

I've worked with a lot of first time directors; in fact, I enjoy it because there is a certain beginner's mind that they bring into a project that isn't loaded with the way things have been done before. There's a certain freedom to it.

The most imaginative people are the most credulous, for them everything is possible.

The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.