“It is not usually the overpowering experience which sets off a flow of thought. Some trivial incident or even a mere word may pull the trigger. Hence the fact that a second-rate book may be more stimulating than a masterpiece.
– Eric Hoffer, Working and Thinking on the Waterfront
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“It’s an axiom that good books make bad movies, but bad books have a shot at becoming good ones. And then there’s the middle ground of books that contain underdeveloped seeds, which perceptive filmmakers can nurture into something that transcends the original without detracting from it.”
– Nat Segaloff, Stirling Silliphant: The Fingers of God
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I like to to think of generating new ideas as riffing of an existing beat.
I have thoughts as a counterbeat to a passage I’m reading, or a conversation, or a song.
I often depend on external sources, perhaps you could say distractions, to help my own mind focus.
An idea may be generated during reading and I am not even aware of it until my mind starts offering it to the surface of my thoughts.
I like to look in the neglected corners of published books to find my gems.
If you read what everyone else is reading you are unlikely to have as many original thoughts.
But if you read widely then you stimulate conversations between authors who never met.
Until you introduced them.
I introduced Mr Hoffer and Mr Segaloff.
I like our conversation.
Conversations With Quotations 