Von Oech Quotes

#1. If you don't execute your ideas, they die." - Roger von Oech

Stephen Guise

#2. Immigration is the ultimate entrepreneurship.

Sam Yagan

#3. If you make an error, use it as a stepping stone to a new idea you might not have otherwise discovered.

Roger Von Oech

#4. I've snapped and plotted all my life. There's no other way to be a king, alive and fifty all at the same time.

James Goldman

#5. Children are our most valuable resource.

Herbert Hoover

#6. It's easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out-of-date.

Roger Von Oech

#7. Life is like a maze in which you try to avoid the exit.

Roger Von Oech

#8. Knowledge is the stuff from which new ideas are made. Thus, the real key to being creative lies in what you do with your knowledge.

Roger Von Oech

#9. Take advantage of the ambiguity in the world. Look at something and think what else it might be.

Roger Von Oech

#10. It's important for the explorer to be willing to be led astray.

Roger Von Oech

#11. When everyone thinks alike, no one is doing very much thinking.

Roger Von Oech

#12. The worlds of thought and action overlap. What you think has a way of becoming true.

Roger Von Oech

#13. Am I Getting Lazy? Am I Too Busy? Am I Becoming Arrogant? Am I Getting Timid? If you answer 'yes' to any one of these questions, that's your warning to Kick that attitude!

Roger Von Oech

#14. Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.

Roger Von Oech

#15. What excuses stand in your way? How can you eliminate them?

Roger Von Oech

#16. Punishment also includes judgmental labeling and the withholding of privileges.

Marshall B. Rosenberg

#17. New ideas are not born in a conforming environment.

Roger Von Oech

#18. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.

Roger Von Oech

#19. You are able to come from openness and softness in an instant.

John De Ruiter

#20. I'm not interested so much in collaboration. You see that from the history of my albums.

Yoko Ono

#21. Most brilliance arises from ordinary people working together in extraordinary ways.

Roger Von Oech

#22. Either you let your life slip away by not doing the things you want to do, or you get up and do them.

Roger Von Oech

#23. Flexibility is a requirement for survival.

Roger Von Oech

#24. The hallmark of creative people is their mental flexibility ... Sometimes they are open and probing, at others they're playful and off-the-wall. At still other times, they're critical and faultfinding. And finally they're doggedly persistent in striving to reach their goals.

Roger Von Oech

#25. Everyone has a 'risk muscle.' You keep it in shape by trying new things. If you don't, it atrophies. Make a point of using it at least once a day.

Roger Von Oech

#26. Most people think of success and failure as opposites, but they both are products of the same process.

Roger Von Oech

#27. As for futuristic costumes, I loved doing 'Gattaca' because I'm a minimalist at heart, and it's a very minimal film. Plus, with Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke and Jude Law, how could you go wrong?

Colleen Atwood

#28. Humor helps people open up.

Roger Von Oech

#29. Here's my advice: Go ahead and be whacky. Get into a crazy frame of mind and ask what's funny about what you're doing.

Roger Von Oech

#30. Look for the second right answer.

Roger Von Oech

#31. Open your mind up to things that have no connection with the problem you're trying to solve: subscribe to an unusual magazine; spend a morning at an elementary school; go to work two hours early; test drive an exotic car; attend a city council meeting; ... try an Indonesian recipe.

Roger Von Oech

#32. Berg was proud of his storytelling to the point where he collected stories about telling stories.

Nicholas Dawidoff

#33. The righteous man departs, but his light remains.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#34. Going to a junkyard is a sobering experience. There you can see the ultimate destination of almost everything we desired.

Roger Von Oech

#35. Most burning issues generate far more heat than light.

Roger Von Oech

#36. We grow up thinking that the best answer is in someone else's brain. Much of our education is an elaborate game of 'guess what's in the teacher's head?' What the world really needs to know right now is what kind of dreams and ideas are in your head.

Roger Von Oech

#37. It's difficult to get your creative juices flowing if you're always being practical, following rules, afraid to make mistakes, not looking into outside areas, or under the influence of any of the other mental locks.

Roger Von Oech