John Hodgman Quotes

Utter originality is, of course, out of the question.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

If they haven't heard it before it's original.

I really strive to bring something new to each book. I don't want to write the same book over and over again.

I always make sure that every film of mine has some element of freshness to it.

Of course you can't do anything completely original.

Artists are always looking for new things and fresh ground and fresh air. If it feels new to me, there's a chance it'll feel new to the audience and we'll have found something.

It's hard to invent a new thing, and it's just as hard to invent another new thing.

When I was going through those very fast changes, I think it was terribly important to me that I was seen to be inventive. I think that was the characteristic of my work that I wanted people to see.

Originality, of course, is what occurs when something new arises out of what's already been done.

Originality is only variation.

People are always talking about originality, but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end.

To the extent a person makes, invents or thinks something that is new to him, he may be said to have performed a creative act.

I try to never repeat a character. I always try to find something new and fresh and interesting that inspires me.

You might say that a creative person is a person who simply has a desire to have something, to add something to the world that's not there yet, and goes about arranging fort that to happen. When you desire a work of art and make it, you've added to the stock of art in the world. Artists are one of the people who can do that: add to the stock of things.

I try not to repeat myself. It's the hardest thing in the world to do -- there are only so many notes one human being can master. .

An artist is a person who has invented an artist.

An idea you have might not be original. But by creating a novel out of that idea you can make it original.

Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality.

When you make something that everyone likes, it's very easy to say, "Well, I'll just repeat that." Because that was easy. I have a formula. But creatively, it's not very interesting.

No Ideas original - there is nothing new under the sun.

The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.

Originality provokes originality.

Creativity is a yearning for immortality

We are living in a world where the individual must learn to command the raw materials of expression. He must not be dependent all the time on the ready-made, the finished product. It's the transferring, the changing of the raw into what is the expression of your own self – the whole joy and satisfaction and frustration of life is built into this.