Ideas quotes
16.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside ideas — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"I can remember as a college student writing stories and novels, some of which ended up getting published and some that didn't. It was like my head was going to burst - there were so many things I wanted to write all at once. I had so many ideas, jammed up. It was like they just needed permission to come out."
"I have an idea of how the book will finish up, but it very rarely finishes up the way that I think it's going to."
"I don't find the technology threatening. A lot of people my age, my generation, find it difficult to immerse themselves. But I would never preclude the idea of using any technology if I thought it suited the end result."
"I had this idea of a restaurant called Roast where everything was roasted. It was dopey."
"If somebody has done it before, that is enough reason to knock an idea off the table"
"What makes success is not your genius idea, but the execution and follow-through around it"
"What distinguishes success from failures is that the successes constantly thirst for new ideas and knowledge."
"Never leave the site of a strong idea without doing something to execute around it."
"Writing is a lot like making soup. My subconscious cooks the idea, but I have to sit down at the computer to pour it out."
"I write short stories when a little idea occurs to me, that I know isn't a part of a novel that will stand by itself and should be concentrated."
"With comedy, you never know until you put it in front of an audience. You shoot it and a year later you have no idea if it's going to work. And then you get the response. It's great when it's good."
"To me, torture would be, "I can't think what to write in the next sentence. I'm stuck." Torture would be if you didn't have the next idea."
"When the person beside you is making you alert and keen and the idea of being with anyone else is not imaginable."
"There is no right or wrong angle for something. The idea of putting the camera in an unfamiliar position is simply to do with film language. Sometimes it is spectacular, sometimes it is ugly, sometimes it is uninteresting."
"I like the idea of having an old Gibson [guitar], but I don't have one. The Gibson has a different quality, but it's almost like you need both."
"When the government tries to run innovation, sometimes it does it well and sometimes it doesn't. So setting up a situation where the market runs innovation, which is a cap-and-trade idea, may well have more flexibility."
"The pursuit of science, the study of the great works, the value of free inquiry, in short, the very idea of living the life of the mind - yes, these formative and abiding principles of higher education in America had their first and firmest advocate, and their greatest embodiment, in a tall, fair-headed, friendly man who watched this university take form from the mountainside where he lived, the university whose founding he called a crowning achievement to along and well-spent life."
"I wanted to be the writer in the room setting depth charges of feeling out the world with my language.You know, I had a very romantic idea about that.But I grew into being a performer."
"Ideas disturb the levelness of life"
"Cinema is a kind of pan-art. It can use, incorporate, engulf virtually any other art: the novel, poetry, theater, painting, sculpture, dance, music, architecture. Unlike opera, which is a (virtually) frozen art form, the cinema is and has been a fruitfully conservative medium of ideas and styles of emotions."
