Mark Leyner Quotes

None of my movies have ever made any money, so it's not about commercial success for me. It's always the same thing. I want to create something valuable, something unusual and different that the world has never seen.

If you stick with a vision, it might not all work, but some of it will be absolute genius. To me, 15 minutes worth of absolute genius in a film is so much better than two hours of mediocrity. I would rather pay to see something different like that.

I like to make the music that I really love. You're supposed to make your favorite music that no one else played, and I'd like to just keep it at that and not really change it at all.

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

Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.

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

The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it.

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.

Michael Fassbender is just a creative force: he finds authenticity in singularity with what he brings, and it's always authentic. He doesn't try to be creative and different for the sake of it.

You're not gonna write a hundred songs and have a hundred entirely different ideas. It's a matter of finding the ones that are the freshest and most unique.

Arrogance generally is a bad thing, but with a band, somehow you have to have this gang mentality or this certain degree of arrogance to push forward an idea that's new enough that people aren't comfortable with it at first.

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.

In my short career, I tend not to repeat myself. I have no interest in redoing something. Sometimes that makes people angry, and maybe it's not the best thing for me commercially. But it's the best thing for me artistically, and it's the best thing for my heart.

Creativity is not about making 30 songs in 30 days. It's never about demand and supply. No one can possibly do that.

There has to be that zeal to do something new and surprise yourself and audiences. You have to stay true to your craft, and that should never be sidelined.

My goal is to not fit in. My worst nightmare is being the baby version of another artist.

My band's motto is 'Yngwie or the highway.' Do you think Leonardo Da Vinci allowed someone who came later to add to his paintings? It's impossible. That's the whole issue. I'm not a typical rock n' roll guitarist nor a simple band member.

I dont ever want to do anything mediocre. I hear the music in the charts and I dont mean to be rude, but those people have no soul. Learning from music is like eating a meal - you have to pace yourself. You cant take everything from it all at once. I want to be different, definitely. Im not a one trick pony. Im at least a five-trick pony.

I don't think my work is so strange. It's just a matter of having the discipline to go the whole way with an idea, to stretch it as far as it can go.

As an aspiring artist, you should strive for originality of vision. Have something to say and a fresh way of saying it. No story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it’s not the work of the imagination.

There are people who are originals and the stuff they make really is new. It isn't based on anything else. But I've decided I'm not that-I was never that. My abilities are to synthesize a wide range of references and ideas into something that feels relatively unified and coherent.

Don't try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.

It is always my endeavour however in making a picture that it should be without a companion in the world. At least such should be a painters ambition.

I dont want to create a monster; I want to make something which is new, exceptional, something that only I do...something that references tradition, but is still new.