If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you open to my ideas
John CleeseRead
This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If just you keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Creativity flourishes when approached with a relaxed and persistent mindset.
John Cleese emphasizes the importance of maintaining a relaxed yet focused attitude toward creativity. By allowing your unconscious mind to engage with a subject over time, you increase the likelihood of experiencing a burst of inspiration or insight, which can lead to innovation or artistic expression.
Themes
CreativityMindsetInspirationUnconsciousReward
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about the creative process.
More from John Cleese
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I was young, and by instinct of self-preservation I had to collect my energy on something, if I were not to be whirled away with the dusk on the farm-roads, or the smoke on the plain. I begun in the evenings to write stories, fairy-tales, and romances, that would take my mind a long way off, to other countries and times.
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It seems to me that's the only way you can have a truly creative aggregate of people is if they're all contributing in different ways.
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