Isaac Bashevis Singer Quotes

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

I can only say that I myself wrote always as I wished, without a tremendous desire to find the latest thing possible.

It's pretty rare that something I've written is close to something that's pre-existed.

Originality is only variation.

I've never had an original thought in my lifeand there's tons of people on the internet happy to tell me just that.

The world is forever babbling of originality; but there never yet was an original man, in the sense intended by the world; the first man himself--who according to the Rabbins was also the first author--not being an original; the only original author being God.

I don't want my writing to be so unique that when you apply it to different genres, it seems like the previous show that people know you from.

I don't think anybody came into the movie business to be unoriginal and plagiarising and not having an original idea in their brain.

I've never actually directed anything I haven't made up. I've never adapted anything.

One of the most challenging aspects of writing a memoir is finding your own voice, and you should be very careful about being influenced by someone else's voice.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

Bernard Shaw said that when you copy yourself, you know you've got style. And I feel that if you can write like you write, then you are true to yourself. And it's not an easy thing to do - it's a disgustingly difficult thing to do.

A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all.

Writing that flirts with incoherence can just as readily flounder as writing characterized by simplicity and composure. There is no reliable formula for originality, and strategies that are distinguished as innovative in their first incarnation can quickly become stale in the hands of lesser artists.

If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.

The American formula things are out there but they don't have any stories to tell - we have all the stories to tell - but they're all formula.

I try not to think of actors as I'm writing because I think you do them a disservice by writing for things they've already done.

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.

I think I'm a good writer. I think I have my own voice, which is unique to everyone - everyone has their own voice; if they would just write from a vulnerable embarrassing place, it's going to be universal, and it's going to be entertaining. Because everyone is the same, and everyone is unique.

I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.

Originality is, for me, the most important quality in a script.

I try hard not to repeat myself and not to do material other people are doing. We transcribe every other late-night show to make sure there's no similarity.

I fear becoming formulaic. Some of my books are.

I think you can't help but write in your own voice.

And I don't want people to think that I make movies based on other films.