Theodor W. Adorno Quotes

All art is based on non-conformity.

Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.

I always had that sense of being censored for the things that I thought. Why is it wrong to embroider your pants, or paint with acrylics on your clothing? Why is that weird? Isn't it weirder to want to be like everyone else?

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.

Just trying to be different - when I hear something - I don't like to go trampling on other people's sounds.

I don't want to get myself in trouble - and I don't think I'm super important or anything - but I think it's so funny that when you look at the business and the way that people make decisions in their lives, whether they're in art or music or they're in industry, they forget that being unique is the answer.

The movies I do have to be different in some way. Nothing vanilla will do.

People classify things and that's fair enough. But if somebody wants to make something different, that doesn't make them any less of an artist.

In a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable.

Art is never defect-free. Things that are remarkable never meet spec, because that would make them standardized, not worth talking about.

Art is magic, not logic. This craze for the logical spirit in irrational shape is part of the present harmful mania for uniformity.

I've always done everything at my disposal to avoid labeling what I do, or to avoid being labeled myself.

It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

It can be frightening to turn your back on what others think is right. But I'm not the same as a lot of people - I'm quite artistic and quite eccentric sometimes. If you honour that, you fit into yourself better - and people accept you for what you are.

I'd hate it if everyone in the world liked me, my music and what I wore. It'd make it boring, and I wouldn't have anything to work towards. It's not to everyone's taste, but I can only be me.

Always be different; don't follow the rules. Don't do what anyone tells you. Don't use the same sounds as people; don't use the same drums as people.

Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humors.

Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

The American people ... have a stake in con-conformity, for they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

Human progress is furthered, not by conformity, but by aberration.

Every part that I do has to be different from the last part that I did so I don't become a stereotype.