It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. Albert Einstein

Don't try to be original, just try to be good. Paul Rand

Everything popular is wrong. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending. Carl Bard

Here are the books I’m currently reading, all recommended:



New Media Design by Tricia Austin and Richard Doust
Grid Systems in Graphic Design: A visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and three dimensional designers by Josef Muller-Brockmann
Design Evolution: A Handbook of Basic Design Principles Applied in Contemporary Design by Timothy Samara
The Fundamentals of Illustration by Lawrence Zeegen
The Elements of Library Research: What Every Student Needs to Know by Mary W. George
Packaging Design by Bill Stewart

If you want to give detailed answer - post a comment - it would be interesting.

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Thomas Edison

The best ideas take time. The more you think about the product, analyse it, examine it from every angle - the more freely great ideas will flow.
The key factor is that physically coming face with the product itself can stimulate all five senses and inspiring on the process of generating ideas.

• If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up. Robert Mapplethorpe

• Photography is not a sport. It has no rules. Everything must be dared and tried. Bill Brandt

• A good portrait tells the subject's past, present, and future. Bill Brandt
  

• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 50% of what we both hear and see
• 70% of what is discussed with each other
• 80% of what we experience personally
• 95% of what we TEACH to someone else

• Creative without strategy is called art. Creative with strategy is called advertising. Jef I. Richards, University of Texas Advertising Department

• Vision without craft remains unfulfilled. Craft without vision is meaningless. Suess B., Creative Black-and-White Photography

• Artists who seek perfection in everything are those that cannot attain it in anything. Eugene Delacroix

Proportion and contrast can save in many cases.