Quotes About Originality

I do admit that I've never been one to fit in easily to any given pattern. It's not my choice. It's just the way I am. So if the characters I wind up playing are all a bit different, it must be because that's the way I like it. Anna Kendrick is different, and she's going to stay that way.

That's one thing I loved about coming up when we came up. When you had groups like Mandrill and Earth, Wind & Fire, Sly Stone, and on and on and on, the Brothers Johnson, whatever. Everybody, Ohio Players. Groups wanted to be just themselves.

Everyone talks about, 'Get your foot in the door,' but I never understood that mentality. Why would I want to go in that house? Why not build my own house? Why not take a chair and smash a window?

Unless you are unique, your opinion goes out the window.

When I first heard Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way,' I looked out the window for the car alarm going off.

I don't feel I'm thrown around by the winds of taste and fashion.

The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.

I'm not afraid to call a wine that tastes like Skittles or green peppers mixed with orange marmalade. I'll say, 'It tastes like chicken.' I mean, that's not what people think of when they think of wine, but that's what it tastes like to me and it hits home.

What happens is that the people who are leaders in any field are copied. I mean, there's a reason why every wine newsletter tends to look like mine. They see someone who's been successful, so they sort of copy these same ideas.

Take Jonathan Franzen's work: it's just old wine in new bottles. They say he's the Tolstoy of the digital age, but there can only be a Tolstoy of the Tolstoyan age.

In China, we had some buildings that looked like the White House or wine bottles. All they seemed to represent was bad taste.

Once he became a series character, I made the conscious choice that he would never act like a series character, never wink at the reader, never pull his punches. Better for him, better for me.

The name Minted speaks to the freshness of our design - the fact that we are receiving thousands of new designs each week and selling freshly minted winners from our design competitions.

Trying to do what your competitors are doing but basically a little bit better is probably not going to be the winning strategy. The problem is finding what your competitors wouldn't even consider doing.

We were a family that made our Halloween costumes. Or, more accurately, my mother made them. She took no suggestions or advice. Halloween costumes were her territory. She was the brain behind my brother's winning girl costume, stuffing her own bra with newspapers for him to wear under a cashmere sweater and smearing red lipstick on his lips.

I don't feel like my sound is similar to any female artist that's out right now, so I definitely feel like we just need some Texas flavor.

There's a lot of culture vultures out there taking our culture down here in Texas.

Texas is still resistant to Howard Johnsons, interstate highways and some forms of phoniness. It is the place least likely to become a replica of everyplace else. It's authentically awful, comic, and weirdly charming, all at the same time.

I plan someday to do a one-man show based solely on the e-mails of Bellamy Young. And people will think I've written a brilliant comedy myself when, in fact, all the text will be directly from Bellamy.

Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.

If you think about it, a lot of great horror films have bad sequels just because the market demands you to make the other one right away. Thank God no one in the 'Evil Dead' family thinks that way.

I have less than no interest in trying to replicate another brilliant actor's work, thank you very much.

I've seen a lot of people stealing from what I do. Some people show love and say thank you and tell me how I was an inspired for them.

I am thankful for the fact that the audience doesn't expect common, run-of-the-mill films from me. But the fact of the matter is that if the subject doesn't hit me hard enough, I will not do it.