The imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles.

People assume that they perceive reality as it is, that our senses accurately record the outside world. Yet the science suggests that, in important ways, people experience reality not as it is, but as they expect it to be.

The best way to solve a problem? Try explaining it to somebody outside your field.

To have a style is to be stuck.

Creativity shouldn't be seen as something otherworldly. It shouldn't be thought of as a process reserved for artists and inventors and other 'creative types.' The human mind, after all, has the creative impulse built into its operating system, hard-wired into its most essential programming code. At any given moment, the brain is automatically forming new associations, continually connecting an everyday x to an unexpected y.

It's a hard thing to describe. It's just this sense that you got something to say.

While human nature largely determines how we hear the notes, it is nurture that lets us hear the music.