From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The greatest film-makers have an ability to work beyond the genre. Kubrick, Scorsese and even the great Ford who made Westerns, but transcended them. There's something about the vision of these film-makers that can use the supporting framework of a genre but create something which appeals to a wider story and audience. That's why they are the great masters.
Comedy delivers the cerebral and the hyperbole, it can be funny and serious. You can see that ability for the pendulum to swing both ways when you watch the best comedians perform.
Comedy chips at people in power, particularly those who use tyrannical power. It strips their fake respect, and destroys the fake fear they create; and these are people who rely on being respected, and being feared.
When do we have our best ideas? When we're in the shower… when we're on a long drive with a radio off… when we're on a hike. The research supports this too.
My best ideas, and most successful opportunities have come- usually- from the most unexpected areas.
I started writing fiction because I was lonely. I was an only child, a solitary child, raised by a single working mother, which was very unusual at the time in Turkey. Literature gave me a sense of continuity, coherence; it kept my pieces together. It helped me to connect even when I felt like I didn't quite belong.
What novels do is to turn the tide and restore our individuality. The writer is alone when s/he is writing, the reader is alone when s/he is reading. This bond is precious.
I wanted passersby to wonder, 'Have you seen that? What's going on there?' I understood that excellent food would ensure repeat customers, but initially, my primary goal was simply to astonish and differentiate myself radically enough to draw attention.
What binds exceptional creators together is their relentless effort. Regardless of the challenges or roadblocks along the way, these people persist and find ways to overcome obstacles.
Storytelling is an extraordinary powerful human skill that all of us are wired for; but its best used in the service of ideas.
We are born creative and often seek to transform our surroundings to suit our existence. Everything around us constantly changes and so creative options for adapting to this change become the only guarantee we have for a meaningful existence.
We were poor, had no branding, and had no money- the only way we could get people into store was to put everything on rollers, and move it to the side, so we could have yoga classes in the middle of the store- a lot of inventions come from the mother of necessity!