Curious that it is impossible for a man to be original without attracting around him a set of unoriginal minds, as though he were a honey-pot and they the flies!

Do your own thing. Others own their own thing. If you copy too much, you'll find yourself in late night cocktail lounge cover band limbo.

An educated person's ideas of Art are drwan naturally from what Art has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what Art has never been; and to measure it by the standard of the past is to measure it by a standard on the rejection of which its real perfection depends.

A poor original is better than a good imitation.

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.

What is the point of being on this Earth if you are going to be like everyone else?

I refuse to believe that Hendrix had the last possessed hand,that Joplin had the last drunken throat,that Morrison had the last enlightened mind.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: —It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to. #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ]

Is it possible to say It was a beautiful morning at the end of November without feeling like Snoopy?

Every story has already been told. Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had.; Mount Holyoke College, May 23, 1999]

originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.

An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.

Anymore, no one's mind is their own.

Dare to research on the originality of any information.

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.

It is perfectly easy to be original by violating the laws of decency and the canons of good taste.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest.

Where do we now meet an original nature? and where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

He is great who is what he is from nature and who never reminds us of others.