Quotes About Originality

It would be terribly boring to be earnest.

Relish being an oddball: Well-behaved, well-adjusted people are hopeless storytellers and, honestly, terribly boring.

The great opportunity with Deadman was that you had a character that nobody had really done anything with - Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino created the character, which is terrific, but Carmine only did one issue with him - and it gave me a chance to do things that I hadn't seen done in comics all of my life.

Honestly, I don't think anyone confuses me with Wes Anderson. He's in his own terrific universe, but not the kind anyone would mistake for mine.

I'm terrified of cliches.

I think the best way is to forget about racing people and just find territory that's fresh.

I'm all in favor of people - myself included - going into the same territory if there's something that can be done with it. But if somebody says, 'Make a sequel to 'Heathers',' I feel like, no, someone should make a good movie that's a dark, satirical comedy that has that sensibility.

Make something new, and define territory that's never been. I fall in love with shows because I've never see that before. I fall in love with new vocabularies.

When you sample something, you're using the crutch of borrowing chords and melodies from a song that's already great, that's already stood the test of time, that's already special. When you're trying to do it all from scratch, you're writing something brand new that has to stand on its own.

The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don't. I don't think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think you need a singular vision to make good art.

What is now commonplace was once not, and I think that's a testament to what it means to really break the mold and push the limits.

Collage is the twentieth century's greatest innovation

When you re the only one to do something it always gets done.

I think Led Zeppelin must have worn some of the most peculiar clothing that men had ever been seen to wear without cracking a smile.

Don't give me any money, don't give me any people, but give freedom, and I'll give you a movie that looks gigantic.

Think it a vile habit to alter works of good composers, to omit parts of them, or to insert new-fashioned ornaments. This is the greatest insult you can offer to Art.

Talent works, genius creates.

When you have a project, do it exactly as you see fit; then fit the facts around the event, not the other way around.

Our people don't have one look, one background, one culture," says Erik. "The common thread is they are themselves. They are genuine.

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

To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.

If Michelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been wallpapered.

Be yourself

Genius disregards the boundaries of propriety. Genius is permitted to shout if shouting is productive.