Quotes About Originality

I never hire a stylist.

I don't have a stylist.

I've never had a stylist or anything. I don't let people style me.

I use a stylist, which wasn't something I imagined I'd ever do, because I like shopping, but because we prerecord 'Countdown,' I don't want to wear something that everyone has from the high street by the time the programme goes out.

If you pretend to be somebody that you're not when you write songs - and I did that on some of the early Styx albums - nobody cares about what you have to say.

When I went out and started making solo records, I was determined not to, I guess, put my name on an album that sounded like Styx. I wanted to carve my own niche, so quite frankly I went in a different direction.

I want to do something original rather than interpret someone else's performance, which is always the risk - even if it's only in a subconscious way. I want to concentrate on giving my own fresh interpretation.

If somebody had started on a remake of French Kiss before I announced my own film, I would have dropped my subject. If someone else starts after me, what am I to do?

I work from a subjective palette.

Redeeming subjects from cliche is its own pleasure and privilege.

If you look at my career... I couldn't possibly have chosen those subjects if I was thinking, 'That's a great commercial idea.' I'm not aware of a great musical where someone has done that.

Like with 'Starlet,' we intentionally did not look at 'Boogie Nights' before making 'Starlet,' and I should have. Because there are one or two scenes that come too close and it looks almost like - because it's about the same industry, and you're going to be covering certain subjects.

I have always chosen subjects which are little different, and not subjects that you see. That challenges me and the actors who work in the project.

The novel avoids the sublime and seeks out the interesting.

Some people, especially literary people, they think, 'I'll write this original script, and it will be full of ideas. I'll submit it, and they'll hire me for television.' That's not the case.

For other comics, it's about full-spectrum dominance, being on panel shows and having one-liners and being a good chat show guest and having a good seven minutes you can do on 'Live At The Apollo.' But I really think about these subsequent finished pieces, you know? And they don't always chop up well into one-liners and routines.

I'll never put out some super-dumbed-down music. It'll always have some substance to it.

I wanted to be different and went in for roles with substance after my first film itself.

I would rather write something that's authentic to me than something that'll be likely to get played on the radio but doesn't have any substance to it. People can see through that really quickly.

What gets people into trouble with records now is that they want to build something up without substantial musical ideas. Without that as a foundation, you can add all the layers of sound you want - it's still going to sound like a mess.

Innovation is doing something in a different way, but it also has a subtext: When there's an established way, and that way is considered the best practice and how it's traditionally been done, innovation comes by and says 'Let's try a different approach.' It doesn't need to be big or company-wide - it could be a single thing.

Nature's far too subtle to repeat herself.

I want to write such things as compel the admiring acclamation of the world at large, such things as are written but once in years, things subtle but distinctly different from the books written every day.

Someone said that the good thing about my TV programme was that it had so many tics, which I think are the subtle little touches of originality that Paul brings to it.