p.6 the novice can often see things that the expert overlooks.
All that is necessary is not to be afraid of making mistakes or appearing naive.
p.10 A talk that we [Maslow and his wife Bertha] had with an artist at Big Sur Hot Springs... He stressed
discipline, labor, sweat. One phrase that he repeated again and again was "Make a pile of chips." "Do something with
your wood or your stone or your clay and then if it's lousy throw it away. This is better than doing nothing." ...
His good-by to Bertha was, "Make a pile of chips." He urged her to get to work right after breakfast like a plumber who has
to do a day's work and who has a foreman who will fire him is he doesn't turn out a good day's work. "Act as if you
have to earn a living thereby." ...he had to be taken seriously because there were his products - the proofs
that his words were not merely words.
p.13 The key question isn't "what fosters creativity?" But it is why in God's name
isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was is crippled? ... By asking the question, "why
do people not create and innovate," one may be able to uncover procedures, policies, and mindsets that inhibit creativity
and innovation.
p.18 Each new invention, each new discovery creates turmoil behind the lines. The people
who have settled down comfortably are shaken and disturbed out of their comfort. It is clear then that any great discovery,
any new invention... anything which will require a reorganization of the conquered territory will not easily be accepted
p.220 creativeness is correlated with the ability to withstand the
lack of structure, the lack of future, lack of predictability, of control, the tolerance for ambiguity,
for planlessness.
Here-now creativeness is dependent on this kind of ability
to forget about the future, to improvise in the present, to give full attention to the present, e.g., to be able
to fully listen or to observe.
p.229 The creative person is able to be flexible; he can change
course as the situation changes (which it always does); he can give up his plans, he can continuously and
flexibly adapt to the law of the changing situation and to the changing authority of the facts, to the demand character
of the shifting problem.
This means, to say it in a theoretical way, that he is able to face a changing future;
that is, he does not need a fixed and unchanging future. He seems not to be threatened by unexpectedness (as the obsessional
and rigid person is). For the creative person who is able to improvise, plans are definitely no more than heuristic
scaffoldings and can be cast aside easily without regret and without anxiety.
p.245 The creative person trusts himself sufficiently to face a new problem or a new situation without
any preparation, to improvise a solution in the new situation. The more obsessional person... can't improvise. They
don't trust themselves to find the solution on the spur of the moment.
