Because it would be a shame if all I remembered from this book is that murderer Gary Gilmore's last words ("Let's do it") inspired the Nike slogan, I will record the following:

If you're stumped on a puzzle, it's better to have a clue flashed in front of your left eye rather than your right one;

***Bob Dylan swore off songwriting before he wrote "Like a Rolling Stone" (or, in Dylan's words, "vomited" it), and marijuana stimulates verbal creativity (shhhh: it was in a footnote), but whether Dylan rolled stoned as part of his rehab songwriting vomit regimen isn't reported.
***Cities are positively connected to creativity, particularly if you're David Byrne on a bicycle in New York. From the evidence, David Byrne in Phoenix would not have been a Talking Head, with or without a bicycle.
***Shakespeare came along when a newly and broadly-educated English middle class was hungry for wordplay. Will filled the bill.
***Brainstorming meetings--where you vomit ideas and nobody wipes them up--are a waste of time. It is more productive to handle creative meetings like Pixar--where you stick ideas to make them bleed, mop up, and move on.

Lehrer has written a dazzling excursion into the scientific and cultural world of creativity. If you spend much time in creative activity, there might even be a useful technique or two to take for a spin. If nothing else, though, you'll be ready for those critics who think your daydreaming is a waste of time: "Be quiet and let me work."