Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

21 Awesome Quotes
from Creativity Inc.
by Ed Catmull

“For all the care you put into artistry, visual
polish frequently doesn’t matter if you are
getting the story right.”

“Whatever these forces are that
make people do dumb things, they
are powerful, they are
often invisible,
and they lurk even
in the best of
environments.”

“If you give a good idea to a
mediocre team, they will screw it
up. If you give a mediocre idea to a
brilliant team, they will either fix it
or throw it away and come up
with something better.”

“People need to be wrong as fast as they
can. In a battle, if you’re faced with two
hills and you’re unsure which one to attack,
the right course of action is to hurry
up and choose. If you
find out it’s the
wrong hill, turn
around and attack
the other one.”

“It’s folly to think you can avoid change,
no matter how much you might want to.
But also, to my mind, you shouldn’t want
to. There is no growth or success without
change.”

“When it comes to creative endeavors, the
concept of zero failures is
worse than useless. It is
counterproductive.”

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy.
We risk very little yet enjoy a position over
those who offer up their work and their
selves to our judgment. We thrive on
negative criticism, which is fun to write
and to read. But the bitter truth we critics
must face is that in the grand scheme of
things, the average piece of junk is
probably more meaningful than our
criticism, designating it so…

“But there are times when a critic truly
risks something, and that is in the
discovery and defense of
the new. The world is
often unkind to new
talent, new creations.
The new needs
friends.”

“Fear of change—innate, stubborn, and
resistant to reason—is a powerful force. In
many ways, it reminded me of musical
chairs: We cling as long as possible to the
perceived ‘safe’ place that we already
know, refusing to loosen our
grip until we feel sure
another safe place
awaits.”

“The
unpredictable
is the ground
on which
creativity
occurs.”

“To think you can control or prevent
random problems by making an
example of someone
is naïve and
wrongheaded.”

“Disney employees attempted to keep his
spirit alive by constantly asking
themselves, ‘What would Walt do?’ Perhaps
they thought that
if they asked that
question they would
come up with something
original, that they would
remain true to Walt’s
pioneering spirit…

“In fact, this kind of thinking only
accomplished the opposite.
Because it looked
backward, not
forward, it
tethered the
place to the
status quo.”

“No one—not Walt, not Steve, not the
people of Pixar—ever achieved creative
success by simply clinging to what used to
work.”
“The past should
be our teacher,
not our master.”

“When filmmakers, industrial designers,
software designers, or people in any other
creative profession merely cut up and
reassemble what has come before, it gives
the illusion of creativity, but it is craft
without art. Craft is what
we are expected to know;
art is the unexpected use
of our craft.”

“Companies, like individuals, do not
become exceptional by believing they are
exceptional
but by under-standing
the ways
in which they
aren’t exceptional.”

“‘You can’t manage what you can’t
measure’ is a maxim that is taught and
believed by many in both the business and
education sectors. But in fact, the phrase
is ridiculous—something said by people
who are unaware of how much is hidden. A
large portion of what we manage can’t be
measured, and not realizing this has
unintended consequences.”

“‘As the composer Philip Glass once said,
‘The real issue is not how do you find your
voice, but… getting rid of the damn
thing.”

“‘It is difficult sometimes to tell the
difference between what is impossible and
what is possible (but requires
a big reach). At a creative
company, mistaking one
for the other can be
fatal—but getting it
right elevates.”

“To keep a creative culture vibrant, we must
not be afraid of constant uncertainty. We
must accept it, just as we accept the
weather. Uncertainty and
change are life’s
constants. And
that’s the fun
part.”

“Trust doesn’t mean that you trust that
someone won’t screw up—it means you
trust them even when they do screw up.”

“Our problem as managers in creative
environments is to protect new ideas from
those who don’t understand that in order
for greatness to emerge, there must be
phases of not-so greatness.
Protect the future,
not the past.”

Want to learn more? Click this link to
buy the book:
Creativity, Inc.

Want more inspiring quotes?
Check out our blog at:
Logomaker.com

And check out our other
presentations:
Click the pictures to open them.

Credits:
All quotes from Creativity, Inc by Ed
Catmull. All images are the property
of Pixar or Disney Studios.

Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

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