Quotes About Originality

If I make a move, like raise my eyebrows, some critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows?

I thought the best thing you were supposed to do was find somebody and try to sound like them.

You can't suppress creativity, you can't suppress innovation.

In art, at a certain level, there is no 'better than.' It's just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it.

I made 'Supreme Clientele' what it is. Those are my stories, based around whatever they're based upon. It's me.

The more I compose, the more I know that I don't know it all. I think it's a good way to start. If you think you know it all, the work becomes a repetition of what you've already done. I try to make sure that I don't repeat my music.

Everyone is looking for the sure thing. They are looking to hedge their bet. They think the way to do that is to go with a proven quantity, a remake of something you have already seen. That is their mindset.

I am surely happy to be breaking away from the norm when it comes to my songs.

We think of writing a book as a process, but the very word - process - suggests that there is one: a template to follow, a map to guide us. If that were true, someone would have surely figured out some marketable method we could all buy.

If you're actually allowing your creative part to control your writing rather than a more commercial instinct or motive, then you'll find that all sorts of interesting things will bubble up to the surface.

I find most 'rules' about how to write a 'good story' confining, and I enjoy writing stories that don't look like stories at all on the surface.

I've been doing a lot of different cross-training and kickboxing and Capoeira and kite surfing, and I've just really been back to what I consider my original athletic self.

If I were to continue to work in an established mode, it stands to reason the work would be limited by this - that it would never surpass the prior work in quality.

Occasionally, you get a nice surprise when someone covers your song in an extraordinary way.

I really like it when you can step outside of what's come before and find a surprise for the reader and find a surprise for yourself.

I don't say that I'm going to be like every other comic that's blue, or gratuitous use of language. I do try to have my own standards: I don't do everything the audience wants, and I do try to surprise them.

If they aren't real enough to surprise me, then they aren't real enough to go on the page.

Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.

It's great to surprise people. If you do the same thing all over again, which people expect you to do, they're going to get bored.

I always like to come with stuff people don't expect me to. I like the element of surprise.

Close to the Edge, Red, One of a kind, Discipline, Earthworks, The Sound of Surprise, all seem to me to be albums that captured the essence of the intention.

The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me.

For me, what is most important is the element of surprise. If I can surprise you with every film of mine, that is exactly what I am trying to do.

I don't repeat that many styles if I can help, although some have become classics. I try not to repeat. I'd rather surprise people.