Children can't help but create: they need to put their mind on the page, they want to paint, to sculpt, to write short stories.

Distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.

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.

Children can't help but create: they need to put their mind on the page, they want to paint, to sculpt, to write short stories.

Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true.

Harlow would later write, "If monkeys have taught us anything, it's that you've got to learn how to love before you learn how to live.

In fact, the only way to remain creative over time--to not be undone by our expertise--is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don't fully understand.