Words of wisdom from Mark Fenske:

A brief is not magic dust, it is simply a starting point.

"No worthy problem is ever solved within the plane of its original conception." - Albert Einstein

A brief is not the creative answer to the problem, it is a creative way to look at the problem. Don't go to a creative and tell him what you want the creative execution to look like and say, because look and say only that and be nothing more.

"If you set out to write a poem about two dogs fucking, and you write a poem about two dogs fucking, then you've written a poem about two dogs fucking." - identity unknown