Quotes About Nonconformity

I don't want my wrinkles taken away - I don't want to look like everyone else.

In fiction, when you paint yourself into a corner, you can write a pair of suction cups onto the bottoms of your shoes and walk up the wall and out the skylight and see the sun breaking through the clouds. In nonfiction, you don't have that luxury.

I wasn't trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn't have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people.

I really believe that a writer is someone who has trained their mind to misbehave.

My sensibility steers me toward writers who are out on their own.

I didn't live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don't know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

Perhaps, thought Nanny, little green Elphaba chose her own sex, and her own color, and to hell with her parents.

As one Questioner pointed out, 'The Rebels' best asset is their voice of dissent. We shouldn't try to school it out of them, or to corporate-culture it out, or shame it out. It's there to protect us all.

Rebels aren't persuaded by arguments such as 'People are counting on you,' 'You've already paid for it'...'Things should be done this way,' 'You have an appointment,' 'You said you'd do it'...'It's against the rules,' 'It's a tradition,' 'This is the deadline,' or 'It's rude.' They're much more apt to respond to being told 'This will be fun,' 'This is what *you* want'...Rebels can do anything they *want* to do.

Rebels can do anything they want to do

The harder the push, the greater the Rebel push-back. I laughed when a Rebel friend told me, 'No one can tell me to do anything. I recently got an email saying Please read in the subject line, and I immediately deleted it.

Rebels often seek out careers that give them the flexibility to choose their work, set their own schedules, and avoid having to answer to other people.

Rebels have shown me that We're more free than we think

I detest common heroes and moderate feelings, the sort that exist in real life

Leur manière de vivre - qui n'était pas celle des autres - déplaisait. Ils devinrent suspects; et même inspiraient une vague terreur.

Paterson was not a member of the club. [..] When Paterson wanted to swim he took a towel and swam in the river naked and his Burmese boy stood on the bank with his bath-robe and waited to rub him down. 'I like to swim in water, not people,' was a remark of Paterson's that for a long time went round the club.

Everything has become very conventional. You're either in or you're out. I'm with the out- with the weird, the impossible, the victimised and the broken. It's the only place to be.

I love the razor's edge. I want to be cut open. My terror is of a bourgeois, ordinary life. I can't bear the everyday constraint. I believe that ordinariness would put out my spark, such as it is.

If somebody tells you there's a rule, break it.

I did 'Mala Noche' as a way to do something that was outside of the system, because I was outside of the system, and I deliberately chose material that Hollywood wouldn't touch in a million years.

I don't do 'political correctness,' whatever that means. I write the stories I want to write, featuring the characters I want to feature. I don't touch demographic bases to appease this group or that. I write what I want. Full stop.

My style is scruffy with a touch of androgyny.

America is a hardheaded place. It's tough to be different here.

I'm not really a tourist attraction kind of guy.