Have you ever felt like you are stuck in a rut in your life? John Hunt, worldwide creative director of TBWA, believes you can change that by simply harvesting the ideas already swimming in your head.

The Art of the Idea: And How It Can Change Your Life is a collection of Hunt's insights, along with illustrations by South African painter Sam Nhelengethwa, meant to encourage original thinking that will break you out of the daily grind. Here are some excerpts.

"A sunriser gives out energy, a sunsetter sucks it away. A sunriser goes through life open to the idea that the best may still be coming. A sunset person is heavy in the knowledge that the best is past."

"Anyone can have an idea. The right to see something from a new perspective belongs to us all. Most people and companies have a vast reservoir of fresh thinkers all around them. But they refuse to utilize them because they refuse to cross-pollinate."

"Fewer and fewer people pay any attention to what their gut is trying to tell them. Yet, when you're desperate for an idea, it's the most precious commodity on earth."

"Expediency wins so often because the obvious is overlooked. If a new idea is worth anything, it should make everyone a little nervous. It will be tougher to sell. But these are all good signs."

"If you want something new to emerge, you want people in the room who don't think like you. Working with people of different backgrounds doesn't just give the group a different point of view, it makes you reassess your own."

"All the lines are blurring. Ideas hop from one to the other, shamelessly borrowing from everywhere. You can be a specialist at what you do, but you better have damn good peripheral vision at the same time."

"It's extremely liberating and honest to admit that we know very little about almost everything. This is not to make us feel small and insignificant, but rather to make us feel excited about how much we still have to learn."

"Fresh thinking is the only saddle we have to ride the unknown, so we might as well get used to making it up as we go along. It also helps if we start enjoying that ride."