The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile.
Philip PullmanRead
I don't know where my ideas come from, but I know where they come to. They come to my desk, and if I'm not there, they go away again.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Ideas are elusive and require presence to be captured.
This quote by Philip Pullman highlights the transient nature of ideas and creativity. It suggests that inspiration can strike at any moment, but if one is not prepared or does not make time to engage with those ideas, they may be lost forever.
Themes
IdeasCreativityInspirationPresenceWorkspace
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about the creative process.
More from Philip Pullman
All quotes βEducation and health were always matters of charity. You educated children and you helped the sick because they were good things to do, not because you were going to make money out of them. If you let the money-making principle, the profit-seeking motive, anywhere near education and health, things go bad.
Philip PullmanRead
To get the best out of life here ...Good grief. There's plenty of it about, so indulge. Give yourself some thing to remember. Fall in love. Fall out of love. Gamble. Get drunk. See how long you can stay awake. Go for long walks at night. Discover what you're afraid of doing, and then do it.
Philip PullmanRead
People should decide on the books' meanings for themselves. They'll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence.
Philip PullmanRead
I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.
Philip PullmanRead
Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isnβt enough. She has been lying all her life, telling stories to people, making up fantasies, and suddenly she comes to a point where thatβs not enough. All she can do is tell the truth. She tells the truth about her childhood, about the experiences she had in Oxford, and that is what saves her. True experience, not fantasy - reality, not lies - is what saves us in the end.
Philip PullmanRead
Similar quotes
You don't have to work for Google, or any of the other firms encouraging staff to pursue personal projects on company time, to use slowness to unlock your creativity. Anyone can do it. Start by clearing space in your schedule for rest, daydreaming and serendipity. Take breaks away from your desk, especially when you get stuck on a problem.
Carl HonoreRead
When anyone starts out to do something creative - especially if it seems a little unusual - they seek approval, often from those least inclined to give it. But a creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism - you learn this as you go on.
Will SelfRead
Creativity needs a bit of untidiness. Make everything too neat and there is no room for experiment.
Charles HandyRead
That combination of thought and action defines creative confidence: the ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out.
Tom KelleyRead
The people who invented the twenty-first century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because they saw differently,β he said. "The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England, Germany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking. The sixties produced an anarchic mind-set that is great for imagining a world not yet in existence.
Walter IsaacsonRead
So much of the work is intuitive. The resistance you detect is just that, a kind of evasion, a sense that too much analysis will inhibit creativity.
Peter WeirRead