Quotes About Originality

I have made that one of my policies never to play anything that I've already put on record.

I know that some people view me as a bit manufactured. But I can't be Whitney Houston: somebody who is polite and perfect and appeals to your mother and your grandfather.

I'm an artist, and an artist doesn't worry about being politically correct when I write.

I'm not a minister, I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a politician, I'm in another category.

I get irritated with the world. I get irritated with politicians. I get very irritated with governments and with corporations, but in terms of imagination - my imagination is always fertile. I'm either thinking of my own things or constantly engaged by the things that other people do.

Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving.

I was a little one-trick pony. I do what I've always done. That's really where my best stuff comes from. I don't know how it happens. It just happens.

They're not poodles, they're art.

A great artist is never poor.

What offends me more than something sexist is something poorly written or unfunny or cliched.

Being a pop artist or making music like a jingle or something - I don't do that.

I'm aware that people enjoy creating categories that make it easier to digest pop culture or the media or entertainment or whatever. But I really have too much to do to fit into any easy category.

We don't want to make little pop culture ephemera or confections, that sort of thing, and so 'ParaNorman' like 'Coraline' has something meaningful to say.

I like pop music, and I like really weird, strange stuff. It just didn't feel like there was anyone doing both.

People didnt expect pop music to be authentic. There were a lot of manufactured bands - of which I love.

I am not trying to be cooler or change my image or get into pop music.

You can get a rut where you think you need to create something that sounds like a certain thing - especially with pop music.

I don't have to, like, try to come out with pop music because I feel that that's gonna make me sell a lot more. I mean, I make the music I love to make and that's it.

We didn't want to worry about the formula that has been implanted into our brains - this verse/pre-chorus/chorus format. When we were writing 'The Papercut Chronicles,' we had no idea about any of that. We didn't know how to count bars or how to write what's considered a well-formatted pop song.

I used to be into Bjork and PJ Harvey, and they used to blow my mind. But there hasn't been a pop star blowing anybody's mind.

I always felt in my band and in the pop-rock format that I wasn't weird enough, that I wasn't standing out enough. Wearing things to get people's attention - I didn't want to do any of that. I didn't want to compromise myself.

You don't have to be Pope Julius to have great art in your house.

Find a poet whose style you like, emulate that style, then deal with things that you know about - don't waste your time looking for your own style.' I wish I could remember who told me that, because I'd like to congraulate him. I've emulated all the old guys - Tennyson, Alexander Pope.

A new idea is like carbonated liquid in a bottle. You just sort of shake it until the cork pops, then you write and write.