Quotes About Originality

Branding your song is the worst thing you can ever do. That's turning your song into a product.

I think the worst thing a player can do is just not be yourself.

I think the worst thing in the world is for artists to produce themselves.

Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.

On 'Avatar', I learned that it's worth taking some risks and doing some weird little things with characters or having an off-joke here and there, even if it's only for 5 percent of the audience.

Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.

Tattoos, cornrows, headbands, hip-hop. I never meant to start any trends. I got my butt kicked, but if that meant that the guys who came after me could be themselves, then it was worth it.

I have a hatred of familiarity. If I feel like I am doing something I've done before, it feels old and done. I feel I have no choice but to strike out in directions that feel new - anything less just doesn't seem worth it.

Let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless and ugly.

All the other rappers around me aren't saying anything worthwhile. They're lost in rap: all they do is tell you they're a sick MC and they're better than you. I don't want to look like all these other little punk, dress-up, fake, manufactured artists. I'm not a rapper. I'm an activist.

It is really disturbing to see that every Tom, Dick and Harry starts singing compositions of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan as there is no one to claim it.

I spent a lot of years working for Ralph Lauren, and he had so many copycats, from Tommy Hilfiger to Abercrombie & Fitch to J.Crew.

I'm not into replicating old movies. But one should never say never. Tomorrow I may feel like making a part 2 of some of my movies.

I don't want to belong to any league. I am in a league of my own. I don't want any tags associated with me because I know when the media associates tags with you, they also have the power to remove those tags tomorrow.

What I ended up learning was that I had to do what I do well, and do it really well and say, 'Maybe there is no pop music that sounds like this now, but I can make it so maybe tomorrow what I like can be what everybody likes.'

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

I always try to find things worth saying, things that are supposed to be said instead of being contrived. I do a ton of writing.

I can't tone it down. I'm being me and being myself.

There aren't, like, four Aquamans before me. I get to set the tone for it.

I don't try to worry about sounding like anybody because I know I have my own tone, my own sound. It's just about being honest in a song and trying to relate myself or how to basically break it down as simple as possible for someone to try to understand it. Not being too deep, not being too shallow at the same time.

It was a fear we had when we started 'Legion,' that there were too many comic-book series out there, and how do you stand out. Our mandate always is to make something different in feel and tone. You try to avoid someone thinking, 'Gee, I've seen this before.'

Everyone can write their melodies and chords and pianos and guitars, but what hasn't been discovered yet are tones and textures, and that's very exciting. Probably the No. 1 most important thing in my music is not to sound like anyone else.

Cockneys make good beggars. They are held in high esteem by the fraternity in America. Their resource, originality and invention, and a never-faltering tongue enable them to often attain their ends where others fail, and they succeed where the natives starve.

I don't think I would do a straight late-night talk show, like a 'Tonight Show' kind of thing. But I'm open to whatever is done well. I don't have any agenda. I'm not like Fugazi - I'm not trying to be just so punk rock until I die. Whatever is funny is good.