Creative Tasks Quotes

The harsh, useful things of the world, from pulling teeth to digging potatoes, are best done by men who are as starkly sober as so many convicts in the death-house, but the lovely and useless things, the charming and exhilarating things, are best done by men with, as the phrase is, a few sheets in the wind.

I guess my job has always been to build the music, direct the videos, to do all the things that usually fall behind the scenes.

I like involved projects.

I bullshit on the phone all day with a variety of people discussing various projects, and occasionally write jokes.

Complex tasks are often better handled in the back of our mind, and that's often true of creative tasks - when you have something complex to deal with in writing or research or responding to an email. I'll start working, put it aside, and sometimes I'll wake up the next morning with a solution, or I'll find one when I exercise.

People are happiest when they're the most productive. People enjoy tasks, especially creative tasks, when the tasks are in the optimal-challenge zone: not too hard and not too easy. To some extent, that has always been true. But it becomes even more true as work becomes more about brains and creativity.

For creative tasks, the best approach is often just to hire great people and get out of their way.

What's important is to do good work and interesting roles.

The more I think about our species the more I think we just do stuff and make up explanations later when asked. But it's not true that I would rather write than read. I would rather read than write. To be honest I would rather hang upside down in a bucket than write.

I tested the waters on producing a record, but I'm more of a creative guy. I can't get into minute details.

I would love to work more - I really would - but there is not a lot of stuff around and the stuff that is around is not very complicated; it tends to lie a little flat.

People talk about songwriting or comedy as creative expression, but life is creative expression. Table-making, even nursing, is extraordinarily creative.

I love drafting like I love eating ice cream or having sex; I love revising like I love doing logic puzzles; I love line-editing like I love perfectly organizing a bookshelf; I hate reviewing copyedits and the second round of proofreading because, by then, I'm getting pretty tired of my own words. They all have their own challenges, though.

A typical day for me is I'm writing when I'm not directing.