Doug Liman Quotes

I think cliche is a good thing sometimes.

Traditionalists often study what is taught, not what there is to create.

Knowledge comes from the past, so it's safe. It is also out of date. It's the opposite of originality... Experience is the opposite of being creative.

Tradition is the great misleader because it's too easy to follow what has already been done - even though you may think you're giving it a kick. I was really trying to invent, instead of merely expressing myself.

If you're always thinking about someone else's work, about the tradition you're working in, how can you possibly make anything good?

If you're ahead of your time, who's going to listen? If you're behind the times, it's boring.

A 'new thinker', when studied closely, is merely a man who does not know what other people have thought.

In a country as united as ours [Russia], it is quite inevitable that a certain amount of thinking in clichés should appear, and I want to overcome this standardized way of thinking and introduce into our literature new ideas, new feeling and rhythms.

We have no precedents to guide us, and that is a glorious thing, for precedents, like other guides are disposed to grow tyrannical and refuse to let us do anything on our own initiative. Life grows wearisome in the countries where precedents and conventionality is rule and nothing can happen unless it has happen before.

I'm one of the culprits who keeps turning stuff around, shaking up original tunes and trying to stand the canon on its ear. But sometimes, you just need to sing the song.

An ounce of convention is worth a pound of explanation.

If you're trying to do what's popular now, you're way behind already. By the time you record it and do it and try to copy it, it's moved on.

No convention gets to be a convention at all except by grace of a lot of clever and powerful people first inventing it, and then imposing it on others. You can be pretty sure, if you are strictly conventional, that you are following genius--a long way off. And unless you are a genius yourself, that is a good thing to do.

We have learned so well how to absorb novelty that receptivity itself has turned into a kind of tradition- "the tradition of the new." Yesterdays avant-garde experiment is today's chic and tomorrows cliche.

It is sometimes necessary to repeat what all know. All mapmakers should place the Mississippi in the same location and avoid originality.

Assimilate all you can from tradition and then say things in your own way.

All traditions are stupid unless you came up with it yourself.

The mark of mediocrity is to look for precedent.

In contemporary art or movies, it makes perfect sense to be focused on the bleeding edge, on the new idea that's never been previously contemplated. But when we're discussing our goals, our passion and the way we interact with the culture, it seems to me that what works is significantly more important than what's new.

You've got to know the rules to break them. That's what I'm here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.

When you don't know the rules, you break them all. It's hard to take big risks when you know the history of an industry and what has worked and what didn't.

Normal means lack of imagination and creativity.

You don't want it to be a replica or an imitation. You want to create something fresh, original, very unique.

One of the enemies of creativity and innovation, especially in relation to our own development, is common sense.

If you're purely derivative in what you do, then you could very easily get lost along the way. But for me, I might want to even do something else for a while.