“Says Christopher Johnson, a linguist and naming expert, “The problem with Google is that it makes us painfully aware of how unoriginal we are. Before web search, two bands could use the same name in happy ignorance as long as they were serving different geographical and stylistic markets.”

“Some will claim that these reforms will hamper artists. But these are the rules that gave us the music of Louis Armstrong and Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and Motown. The rules that governed the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Wallace Stevens and Zora Neale Huston. The rules that protected the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell and Jackson Pollock. They are the rules that produced “Casablanca,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Star Trek” and “I Love Lucy.”

“Creativity is not an option, it’s an absolute necessity.”

“There’s probably no better example of the throttling of creativity than the difference between what we observe in a kindergarten classroom and what we observe in a high school classroom,” she writes in Teach Your Children Well. “Take a room full of five-year-olds and you will see creativity in all its forms positively flowing around the room. A decade later you will see these same children passively sitting at their desks, half asleep or trying to decipher what will be on the next test.”

“Hobbies or other activities in which we create something new—be that music, food, or furniture—require problem-solving skills and imagination. Such tasks are often relaxing, and even when they take a lot of energy, they are usually fulfilling. It stands to reason, then, that creativity could reduce our stress levels, improve our overall health, and increase our longevity. Get out the finger paints.”

“But what’s the most viewed TED Talk of all time? According to the TED blog, creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson’s 2006 talk on why our education system is killing student creativity and why we need to radically rethink our approach to schooling has a lock on the number one spot. As of this writing, Robinson’s talk has 13,409,417 views across various online platforms.”

“I think ‘creativity’ is better described as failing repeatedly until you get something right.”

“The knowledge I acquired through constant struggle was much more valuable to me than if it had been dispensed by a talkative, didactic professor intending to fill my head. Today’s education, with its crash courses, its CliffsNotes, its how-to videos, its Internet instant answers and its multitude of shortcuts gives the impression of winning the race against time, but what it really does is spread insidiously the frailties of artificialness. I have the certitude that although the sum of my autodidactic discoveries took a long time to crystallize, I did not lose any time. In fact, I won; the result remains solidly anchored inside me, and it will fuel my creativity for the rest of my life.”

“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.”