Jim Rash Quotes

The history of science and culture is filled with stories of how many of the greatest scientific and artistic discoveries occurred while the creator was not thinking about what he was working on, not consciously anyway - the daydreaming mode solved the problem for him, and the answer appeared suddenly as a stroke of insight.

To me, the question of inspiration is an exercise in hindsight. The truth is, inspiration is mysterious at the time. I don't think it's ever a rational process.

Creativity and insight almost always involve an experience of acute pattern recognition: the eureka moment in which we perceive the interconnection between disparate concepts or ideas to reveal something new.

Inspiration doesn't really work like that - you're not looking out for it. Inspiration is something that tends to capture you rather than you capture it.

Typically my ideas come to me in the most inane ways possible. I had the initial idea for 'Quantum Conundrum' while I was walking down the street to get breakfast. People are like, 'Whoa, what's your inspiration, is it something amazing?' No, I was just really hungry.

The creative act always requires a stepping back. It's called the incubation period. The incubation period - one of the four phases of creativity - is when you're not consciously thinking of a problem, and you're letting it marinate. So this is why you hear time and again, people saying they had that "Eureka" moment in the bath, like Archimedes, or in the shower, or while going for a walk or in a coffeehouse.

The creative process is mysterious; a conversation, a ride in the car, or a melody can trigger something.

My ideas tend to arise out of nowhere when I'm not intentionally trying to think of something.

I do not 'get' ideas; ideas get me.

Sometimes the best ideas will come in the least inspiring places.

You never know where inspiration is going to come from.

For me, the creative process is this giant patchwork of information.

A lot of problems get solved in those sort of in-between moments when your subconscious has been working on some problem. If you keep it spinning, you can fix ideas sometimes better than if you focus on them directly.

If you're thinking about the idea in the shower. If you're thinking about the idea while you're walking your dog, there's probably something to it.

Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.

I get inspired at different times and in different ways.

I think that everything is part of creativity - the more you create, the more you have ideas, and the more you meet people.

You don't go to the library and walk along and pick out a topic. You are riding the bus, or shopping at Safeway, and all of a sudden the idea comes to you.

Creativity requires input, and that's what research is. You're gathering material with which to build.

Sentences or solutions occur to me in the shower, or while running on the treadmill, or riding on the subway.

The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.

It's not enough to tell people to be creative; they need to know how, and what to create.

On my walks, that's when the good ideas come. The kind of hard, gritty work is when you're sitting at the computer and it's kind of intense and you're kind of in super control of it - the walks are when you let go. That's when the really big breakthroughs come in, and it's very strange.

I sometimes don't try to invent something. I wait for some kind of a direction - and it happens. I get an angle, for instance, and it just appears, and I say, 'Oh my God - that's it!'

It's when you've stopped writing and are doing other things, especially when you're asleep, that the real work is done.