Jacques Derrida Quotes

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.

You develop a voice and a process that's unique to yourself.

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

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

When you have your own identity as a singer, you don't have competition.

A man's style is his mind's voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.

I don't want words that other people have invented. All the words are other people's inventions. I want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too, matching the rhythm and all my own.

Never be afraid of a cliché, if it expresses what you wish to say.

It's hard work to find your own voice and not to copycat anything.

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.

What I aspire to do, and what I try the hardest to do, is write stuff that's very personal in its way. I figure I can only say things the way I say them, so I'm trying to do something that is kind of anti-generic.

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.

If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

I don't chase what I hear on the radio. I try not to compete with anybody.

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 love to write. I used to be a math teacher. And I like the idea that other people could write about the same subjects, but no one would write it just the way I do. It's very individual: a child could write the same story as somebody else, but it wouldn't come out the same.

Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.

I would say trust your own judgment and develop your own style that is true in your heart and don't be deterred from that. Just develop that something that's unique to you that you feel you can give. Be true to yourself, trust your own judgment; that's all.

I can only be me. I have a hard time being a chameleon as a singer.

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.

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.

Personal style isn't simply an exercise in parroting but rather an exhibition for our own stories - from the gait of our walk to the rhythm of our speech to the manner in which the necktie falls from the knot.

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.