Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away.
I keep a note pad because, sometimes, my thoughts get jammed up, and this is the only way that I can just, I can put brakes on it and brace myself, and just really, I feel like it's better when I see it on paper.
You can have a million dollar, 20 million dollar budget or 60 million dollar budget, and if you don't have a good script, it doesn't mean a thing.
I drink a lot, probably too much. My scene while writing lyrics is always a bottle of scotch and stacks of note cards, pencil and pencil sharpener. I throw around note cards and drink.
If you knew that you were the owner of a million-dollar mind, would you treat your mind with more respect and appreciation? Would you put less poison in a million-dollar mind? Pay attention to what poisons you may be feeding your mind with & how now keeping your mind clear and healthy could make you more effective.
We never read without profit if with the pen or pencil in our hand we mark such ideas as strike us by their novelty, or correct those we already possess.
My dreams are the usual incoherent nonsense. Like most writers, at some point in my career I thought, well, I have these great dreams but I always forget them in the morning so I’ll leave a pad on my bedside table so I can write it down, and then you have some incredible dream and you write it down and the next morning you wake up and you’ve written ‘purple socks’.
I just want to learn as much as I can, and that comes from the people I surround myself with. So whether that is on a one-million-dollar movie, or 100-million-dollar movie, it doesn't really matter.
Ideas, even million-dollar ones, are most vulnerable in their infancy; don't share them with too many people. However, don't hide your plan from people who can help you move it forward.
I really sense the Lord saying to me that: "There are churches, there are ministers and there are business people that this $8,500 seed is going to connect you to a million dollar plus decision. A million dollar plus opportunity."
I keep a notebook of ideas, and sometimes ideas form in your head that you just have to write down, or you'll forget them.
I keep a notebook on my bedside table and write poetry every night before I go to sleep. It's been something I've been doing since I was in the second grade, when I was encouraged by my teacher.
I always have several books on the go at any one moment, so it's no good you asking 'What's on the bedside table at the moment, Emma?' because often I can't even see the table!
After I won the Oscar for 'Pollock,' some newspaper printed, 'She should get a million-dollar bump.' My sisters would write me, 'You're gonna get this million-dollar bump!'
Always make it a goal to keep your conversations cordial. Sometimes that will not be possible. If a principled, charitable expression of your ideas makes someone mad, there’s little you can do about it. Jesus’ teaching made some people furious. Just make sure it’s your ideas that offend and not you, that your beliefs cause the dispute and not your behavior.
After all, at end of the day, when you're breathing your last, it's not your producer, director, or cast mates by your bedside; it's your children. Keep that in mind.