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21 Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull

Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

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21 Inspirational quotes from Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull, founder of Pixar Studios. These quotes come from what is perhaps the best book about managing creative people and companies.

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Page 1: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

21 Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc.

by Ed Catmull

Page 2: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn’t matter if you are

getting the story right.”

Page 3: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 4: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 5: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 6: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 7: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

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

counterproductive.”

Page 8: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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…

Page 9: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 10: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 11: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

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

Page 12: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“To think you can control or prevent random problems by making an

example of someone is naïve and wrongheaded.”

Page 13: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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…

Page 14: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

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

Page 15: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 16: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 17: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

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

Page 18: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“‘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.”

Page 19: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“‘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.”

Page 20: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“‘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.”

Page 21: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 22: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

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

Page 23: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

“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.”

Page 25: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

Want more inspiring quotes? Check out our blog at:

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Page 27: Awesome Quotes from Creativity Inc—Inspirational Quotes from Ed Catmull

Credits:

All quotes from Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull. All images are the property

of Pixar or Disney Studios.