Quotes About Originality

No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.

I see my work plagiarized in gardening programmes and decorating programmes and car adverts, and I suppose I have to accept that's just the way art gets assimilated into culture.

The only original part in a work of art is the infusion of the artist's own character, if he has one.

I work with nature, although in completely new terms.

The effect of sincerity is to give one's work the character of a protest. The painter, being concerned only with conveying his impression, simply seeks to be himself and no one else.

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.

The true work of art is the one which the seventh wave of genius throws up the beach where the undertow of time cannot drag it back.

I feel quite comfortable and happy with making a work that looks like it could have been made by somebody else.

For a true work of creativity, you must reach beyond yourself to bring correct draftsmanship together with strong composition and lifelike colors.

We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.

But no work from a first rate mind is ever really second rate.

I refuse to write the same story twice. I keep experimenting. I keep learning how to work. I've been at it pretty much 50 years, and I'm now beginning to learn how to do the job well.

There is no Sixth Commandment in art. The poet is entitled to lay his hands on whatever material he finds necessary for his work.

No, I don't make my work in order to challenge or confuse other people's expectations - I only do what I find natural.

People are always talking about originality, but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end.

I've learned that people latch onto labels and stereotypes. There was a period when I was asked in every single interview how I liked being the new Frank Sinatra... I think people will soon realize that I do a lot more than interpret old songs.

My goal is to be myself, and to challenge stereotypes, and to follow the rules, and break them, and make new rules. It's not about doing something that's already been done. That would be silly.

In many ways, being yourself is dispelling stereotypes.

I've never liked to play stereotypes.

I guess I blow all the stereotypes right out of the water.

Stereotypes are so played out.

Doing the stereotypical solo bores me.

What I think happens today is that a lot of filmmakers look at other films that are retro pieces, like L.A. Confidential, and say, oh, that's period. We didn't want to do the stereotypical stuff.

I did not want to do stereotypical buildings.