Quotes About Originality

You cannot teach a person how to write songs. It's about being your own person and following your instincts.

You can't teach someone to be imaginative.

The main thing in making your own music is that it's an expression of someone's personality and being. That's what people want to hear, and you can't really teach that - that's just something that comes out. Teaching just hones that.

You have to think that the answer - and the right answer - for you and your organization might not be something that's been done before. And it's up to you to discover and work with your team to form and figure out how to do successfully.

Where's the glory in repeating what others have done?

Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.

You should bring something into the world that wasn't in the world before. It doesn't matter what that is. It doesn't matter if it's a table or a film or gardening - everyone should create. You should do something, then sit back and say, "I did that.

I think if I'm going to do a science fiction, I'm going to go down a new path that I want to do.

There is nothing more awesome than being yourself.

The only way you can get good, unless you're a genius, is to copy. That's the best thing. Just steal.

Art imitates nature, but does not copy it.

Making sense is overrated. It's just confirming what people already think. Making new sense is more important.

I mean, the most important thing to me is imagination.

We have become a society of fakes, so intent copying the famous that we cannot figure out who we are.

A "critic" is a man who creates nothing ...

I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before.

People have asked me throughout the years which directors have influenced me. I don't know their names, because I was mostly influenced when I'd see a film and think, "Man, I want to be sure to never do anything like that." So I never learned their names. It wasn't a matter of copying or emulating somebody I admired. It was getting rid of a lot of stuff.

Forgive plagiarism, copy one person's thoughts, you are a plagiarist.... if it is by more than one, it's a council! (may have "borrowed this, too!")

Innovation is an unruly thing. There will be some ideas that don't get caught in your cup. But that's not what the game is about. The game is what you catch, not what you spill.

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much. —WALTER LIPPMANN I

Every house is built after a plan of its own: one looks in, another looks out; one is tall, another broad; and they are so irregular in height and outline that they seem as if they were all getting up out of bed at different hours in the morning, some not being yet quite up, while others are yawning and stretching themselves.

Why try to be someone you're not? Life is hard enough without adding impersonation to the skills required.

Authentic expression is something you can't invent. When you capture it, it's worthy of admiration.

An old thing becomes new if you detach it from what usually surrounds it.