On automatic pilot...

‘I was on automatic pilot; ideas for gadgets kept coming, fed by a force of energy flowing through me and around me. I wasn’t really conscious of pausing to eat or sleep, I was caught up in a flurry of activity. I must have been experiencing the same sort or rapture of creation I imagine composers or poets get carried away by when they lose themselves in their work. I forgot about everything else to concentrate on what I was doing. I’d work eighteen-hour stretches and fall asleep in my clothes. Then I’d wake up in the middle of the night, brew a pot of tea, and start work again. I was tired, but work had become pure enjoyment.’ — Trevor Baylis

No matter how old you get...

“No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be creative, you’re keeping the man-child alive.” — John Cassavetes

F@*# self-doubt...

“F@*# self-doubt. I despise it. I hold it in contempt, along with the hell-spawned ooze-pit of Resistance from which it crawled. I will NEVER back off. I will NEVER give the work anything less than 100%. If I go down in flames, so be it. I’ll be back.” -Steven Pressfield

We all operate in two contrasting modes...

“We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode. Not that the closed mode cannot be helpful. If you are leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time for considering alternative strategies. When you charge the enemy machine-gun post, don’t waste energy trying to see the funny side of it. Do it in the “closed” mode. But the moment the action is over, try to return to the “open” mode—to open your mind again to all the feedback from our action that enables us to tell whether the action has been successful, or whether further action is need to improve on what we have done. In other words, we must return to the open mode, because in that mode we are the most aware, most receptive, most creative, and therefore at our most intelligent.” -John Cleese