#originality

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

— Umberto Eco

#originality #stereotypes #writing #beauty

No man, proclaimed Donne , is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island ) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes-forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#insulation #islands #isolation #life #originality

Originality depends only on the character of the drawing and the vision peculiar to each artist. ↗

— Georges Seurat

#character #depends #drawing #each #only

For people never say anything the same way twice; no two of them ever say it the same. The greatest imaginative writer that ever brooded in a lavender robe and a mellowed briar in his teeth, couldn't tell you, though e try for a lifetime, how the simplest strap-hanger will ask the conductor to be let off at the next stop. ... It is all for the taking. All the manuals by frustrated fictioneers on how to write can't give you the first syllable of reality, at any cot, that any common conversation can. All the classics, read and re-read, can't help you catch the ring of truth as does the word heard first-hand. ↗

— Nelson Algren

#originality #truth #writers #writing #imagination

You couldn't get more original than Laura. Laura. Yes, she was an original, all right. One of a kind. Did they break her mold or what, pal? Or...or did it self-destruct? Still, Laura. The one and the only. Such a plain name for a unique cutie. But perhaps my acuity is not without its problems. I ruin everything: a stupid story to be tapped out on my tomb's stone. I ruined even Laura. And an original ruin is rare. Just ask the archaeologist, "Egypt, again?" Just ask me, "Laura, again?" and we'll both respond: "Yes, again and again. And again. ↗

— Vladimir Nabokov

#love #original #originality #love

Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought. ↗

— Edward Carpenter

#examinations #go #great #great success #naturally

Because of this, originality consists in returning to the origin. ↗

— Antonio Gaudi

#consists #origin #originality #returning

I always try to improve, to find new ways of expressing myself, to keep looking for truth and originality. ↗

— Burt Lancaster

#expressing #find #i #i always #improve

A great literary work can be completely, completely unpredictable. Which can sometimes make them very hard to read, but it gives them a great originality. ↗

— Yann Martel

#gives #great #hard #literary #literary work

The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger. ↗

— W. Somerset Maugham

#comfortable #first #general #habits #know