Quotes from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“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.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Failure isn’t a necessary evil. In fact, it isn’t evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Don’t wait for things to be perfect before you share them with others. Show early and show often. It’ll be pretty when we get there, but it won’t be pretty along the way.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know—not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear. Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don’t know can we ever hope to learn it.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“When it comes to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“When faced with a challenge, get smarter.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Fear can be created quickly; trust can’t.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Craft is what we are expected to know; art is the unexpected use of our craft.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“What is the point of hiring smart people, we asked, if you don’t empower them to fix what’s broken?”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“For many people, changing course is also a sign of weakness, tantamount to admitting that you don’t know what you are doing. This strikes me as particularly bizarre—personally, I think the person who can’t change his or her mind is dangerous. Steve Jobs was known for changing his mind instantly in the light of new facts, and I don’t know anyone who thought he was weak.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“You don’t have to ask permission to take responsibility.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Always take a chance on better, even if it seems threatening.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Making the process better, easier, and cheaper is an important aspiration, something we continually work on—but it is not the goal. Making something great is the goal.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“You’ll never stumble upon the unexpected if you stick only to the familiar.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“The future is not a destination - it is a direction.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“What makes Pixar special is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable; and that, when we come across a problem, we marshal all of our energies to solve it. This, more than any elaborate party or turreted workstation, is why I love coming to work in the morning. It is what motivates me and gives me a definite sense of mission.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them—if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line—well, you’re deluding yourself. For one thing, it’s easier to plan derivative work—things that copy or repeat something already out there. So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“What interests me is the number of people who believe that they have the ability to drive the train and who think that this is the power position—that driving the train is the way to shape their companies’ futures. The truth is, it’s not. Driving the train doesn’t set its course. The real job is laying the track.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Be patient. Be authentic. And be consistent. The trust will come.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“it is not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It is the manager’s job to make it safe to take them.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“Quality is the best business plan.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“We must remember that failure gives us chances to grow, and we ignore those chances at our own peril.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“By ignoring my fear, I learned that the fear was groundless. Over the years, I have met people who took what seemed the safer path and were the lesser for it...I had taken a risk, and that risk yielded that greatest reward...Always take a chance on better, even if it seems threatening.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“I tend to flood and freeze up if I’m feeling overwhelmed. When this happens, it’s usually because I feel like the world is crashing down and all is lost. One trick I’ve learned is to force myself to make a list of what’s actually wrong. Usually, soon into making the list, I find I can group most of the issues into two or three larger all-encompassing problems. So it’s really not all that bad. Having a finite list of problems is much better than having an illogical feeling that everything is wrong.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“We start from the presumption that our people are talented and want to contribute. We accept that, without meaning to, our company is stifling that talent in myriad unseen ways. Finally, we try to identify those impediments and fix them.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“We want people to feel like they can take steps to solve problems without asking permission.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

“THERE IS NOTHING quite like ignorance combined with a driving need to succeed to force rapid learning.”
― Ed Catmull, quote from Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.