#original

Absurdity and anti—absurdity are the two poles of creative energy. ↗

— Karl Lagerfeld

#absurdity #anti-absurdity #art #bi #bipolar

Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself. ↗

— James Stephens

#consist #does #ever #exactly #originality

The artist's duty is to defend the exceptional: the imagination. ↗

— Marty Rubin

#imagination #originality #art

In Truth, none seem to have any Title to assert Human Nature to be necessarily and universally evil, but those whose own Minds afford them one Instance of this natural Depravity. ↗

— Henry Fielding

#nature

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known. ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#originality #nothing

All novels are sequels; influence is bliss. ↗

— Michael Chabon

#cliche #novels #originality #writing #influence

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#copies #few #gallery #many #originals

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." [Commencement Speech; Mount Holyoke College, May 23, 1999] ↗

— Anna Quindlen

#creativity #originality #point-of-view #uniqueness #writing

Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities. ↗

— Criss Jami

#creative #creativity #disagreeable #envy #intimidating

Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#criminals #degeneration #enterprise #originality #pencils