H. L. Mencken Quotes

Bad criticism recites rote arguments. The shame of rote arguments isn't just that they're cliches, though they are, but that they tend to hide from us why a critic is actually thinking what they're thinking.

British press think entirely in clichés, and when they do come across creative work, they think that it must be based on something, because they don't realize that you can create things that aren't based on things.

For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while.

Mediocre theoretical physicists make no progress. They spend all their time understanding other people's progress.

We come too late to say anything which has not been said already.

I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking

What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.

When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7

Think of a flabby person covered with layers of fat. That is what your mind can become - flabby, covered with layers of fat till it becomes too dull and lazy to think, to observe, to explore, to discover ... not wanting to be disturbed or questioned into wakefulness.

I'm not a guy who likes cliches. I don't think that stereotypes and cliches are the end of the line, when it comes to a performance.

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.

If you do something that's really original, you discover why everybody else does it the other way, usually. There's a reason cliches exist, 'cause they work.

I don't think there's anything really wrong with influence because I think that one can use another man's art as material either literally or just implying that they're doing that, without it representing a lack of a point of view.

No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

Someone very smart once said to me, "Steal, don't borrow." So if there's anything good in anything anyone else does, it's fair game. I think that everything I've ever done at some point is part of someone else's legacy.

Artists everywhere steal mercilessly all the time and I think this is healthy.

I don't like the fact that no one has any imagination anymore. It doesn't pay to be a dreamer because all they really want you to do is answer the phone. Nobody wants you to think about anything new or use your brain or make anything interesting because everything important has already been made. America is over; it's done being brilliant.Everything genius has already been built, like all the great works of art have already been produced.

I realize that we all do express ourselves, but those who express that which is always being done are those whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else. Expression on this basis has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves.

Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you're doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.

I haven't come across any recent new ideas in film that strike me as being particularly important and that have to do with form. I think that a preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it.

I think it's vital to be honest with yourself. You do have to satisfy yourself first. If you're drawing something, you have to ask yourself if it's something you genuinely think is funny. Or is it starting to fall into just a category, just kind of a shtick thing? I think it's important for all cartoonists to be honest with themselves about their own sense of humor and what they're doing.

I think one of the things about creativity is not to be afraid of saying the wrong thing.

So, I think there's a danger that good stuff can fall by the wayside if it doesn't conform to formula. But I think it comes down to money and they just don't know where it's going if they haven't got any precedent.

A big talent steals, a small talent borrows.

I think style is a fringe benefit that looks like you made it.