Sue Grafton Quotes

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.

I don't write the same book twice.

It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one's own creativity - that's a much tougher matter.

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

What is nice about country music today is that most artists are not trying to do something everybody else is doing. They really are trying to develop their own uniqueness.

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that.

I think that all my albums are different enough where I don't feel like I did this the last time.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

No age is compelled to take its beauty from preceding epochs.

You can't be all of the people you're influenced by, so you make your own filter and create your own beautiful, unique thing in the world. Soak up the world, man, and make something of your own.

I'm into emulation, not imitation.

I have to believe everything I write is brand new and I'm writing in this way about these people in a completely new situation for the very first time.

No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.

People don't want just vanilla. They want 31 flavors. I couldn't do what Rihanna does. I couldn't do what Gaga does. They can't do what I do.

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.

Groups like The Mountain Brothers just have to keep on doing what they're doing - just make it dope and just make it different. And not try to compete with other people of color.

Every time I write a new book, I want to push myself to try something different.

No two dramatists think or write alike. Ten thousand playwrights can take the same premise, as they have done since Shakespeare, and not one play will resemble the other except in the premise. Your knowledge, your understanding of human nature, and your imagination will take care of that.

I want to show my versatility and how diverse I am, how I approach the track, my rhythm, my melodies. It's something different. Sometimes, the things I do haven't ever been done.

We live through life, but we live through art, too. And in art, as in life, nothing is generalized. No one thing is a copy of the next. Everything is individual.

Sometimes you find your voice by trying to write like people, and sometimes you find it by trying to write unlike people.

There is something about the sameness people like. And what I've tried to do with all the zombie films is purposely make them different. That may be part of why it takes so long for people to see what it's intended to be.

I fear becoming formulaic. Some of my books are.

Probably the No. 1 most important thing in my music is not to sound like anyone else. It is hard in this day and age.

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