E. L. Doctorow Quotes

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

I wanted each of my books to be very different from the others, each to be special and uncategorizable, and I knew I could only do that a few times before I was in danger of repeating myself.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

I don't know if there is any one secret to successful writing, but one important step is to move beyond imitation and discover what you can write that no one else can - that is, find out who you are and write that in an appropriate narrative and style.

I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.

I think you can't help but write in your own voice.

I would like to be able to write in my own voice.

A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.

To have someone who's got a strong individual voice that is allowed to be heard is quite increasingly rare. These people need to be cherished.

If you write with passion in your own style, you will make a place for yourself

Like Hemingway and Faulkner, but in an entirely different mode, Fitzgerald had that singular quality without which a writer is not really a writer at all, and that is a voice, a distinct and identifiable voice. This is really not the same thing as a style; a style can be emulated, a voice cannot, and the witty, rueful, elegaic voice gives his work its bright authenticity.

If I was singing like somebody else, then it was almost like I was expressing myself like somebody else. So it was always a very original thing for me. It's my voice, it's my diary, it's the way I connect with people.

It’s so important to create in your own voice, to hold onto what makes you unique, and have faith in your vision.

Hemingway sucks. If I set out to write that way, it would have been been hollow and lifeless because it wasn't me.

In life, finding a voice is speaking and living the truth. Each of you is an original. Each of you has a distinctive voice. When you find it, your story will be told. You will be heard.

The worst thing you can do is say to yourself, "I want to be just like somebody else." You have to absorb knowledge from someone else, but ultimately you have to find your own voice.

Any kind of creativity is not settling down into a happy little space. I don't try to be mellow or anything. I think I have quite... my voice is what it is, no matter what I'm singing, it's always going to sound like me. There's not too far I could go. I sound like myself. I hope that I haven't put any boundaries on anything.

I write the way I write.

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

If you want to be original just try being yourself, because God has never made two people exactly alike.

So it's not so much that I set out to do something different, it's just that the songs themselves require their own individual voice and attention.

I know one of the reasons I first started making Youtube videos was because no one looks like me.

Bernard Shaw said that when you copy yourself, you know you've got style. And I feel that if you can write like you write, then you are true to yourself. And it's not an easy thing to do - it's a disgustingly difficult thing to do.

I want to encourage kids to speak up, to tell their stories. That is the only way people will know what we have to go through. Believe in yourself. Someone once told me being different isn't bad - different is just different!

That's that Dungeon Family ethos: being able to reinvent yourself, stand out and stand alone. Having your own character and having your own image, no matter what they say about you. I want to show my versatility and how diverse I am, how I approach the track, my rhythm, my melodies. It's something different.