Quotes About Originality

So few want to be rebels anymore.

I don't need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.

I did what most writers do at their beginnings: emulated my elders, imitated my peers, thus turning away from any possibility of discovering truths beneath my skin and behind my eye.

Surprise is where creativity comes in.

It doesn't have to be the greatest. It does have to be you.

I'm a California boy. I don't tell anyone how to write and no one tells me. (Paris Review Interview)

He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man.

He had seen her painted sign by the road: Skin Illustration! Illustration instead of tattoo! Artistic!

It doesn't have to be the greatest but it does have to be you.

I fell into my typewriter with it and came up with a brand-new, absolutely original tale, which had been lurking under my skin since I first drew a skull and crossbones, aged six.

La gente no habla de nada. - ¡Oh, de algo hablarán! - No, de nada. Nombran una serie de automóviles, hablan de ropa o de piscinas y dicen que es estupendo. Pero todos comentan lo mismo y nadie tiene una idea original.

You can't have creativity unless you leave behind the bounded, the fixed, all the rules.

We can never cease to be ourselves.

He was absurd to the point of inspiration.

Not like Homer would I write, Not like Dante if I might, Not like Shakespeare at his best, Not like Goethe or the rest, Like myself, however small, Like myself, or not at all.

I was cut off from the world. There was no one to confuse or torment me, and I was forced to become original.

There was no one near to confuse me, so I was forced to become original.

I was put off from the world---so I was forced to become original.

When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, Who has?

Show me anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new, and I will show you it hath been.

would take more than a Jesus to invent a Jesus.5

Whatever makes you weird, is probably your greatest asset.

Always be yourself... unless you suck.

Whatever makes you weird is probably your best asset.