Lydia Millet Quotes

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

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 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 want to write formula. I don't want to crank these books out like sausages. Every book is different, which takes a hell of a lot of ingenuity on my part.

Life would be much easier if I just wrote the same book over and over again. But I'm not interested in doing that.

I didn't want to write the same book over and over.

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

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.

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.

I fear becoming formulaic. Some of my books are.

What I try to do with any of my stories, any of my novels, is make them feel very original.

The hardest part is not to repeat yourself. I don't really believe my core obsessions are going to change, but you need to look for ways to express them that are different. The main reason for doing that is not to bore yourself, and obviously, I don't want to bore readers.

Every story is different, so what is a detail in one might not be in something else. Diversity is something I embrace and love about my work.

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.

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.

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.