Christopher Paolini Quotes

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

Why should the composer be more guilty than the poet who warms to fantasy by a strange flame, making an idea that inspires him the subject of his own very different treatment?

Genius is initiative on fire.

When we had to do book reports, I would pick a book that no one read and just make it up and turn that in. I got praised for my imagination.

Out of nothing I have created a strange new universe.

There are very few people who are creative and imaginative. Therefore, fiction is difficult for people to embrace.

Critics are not creators. They rarely write great novels, invent new technologies, or come up with a great business idea.

We travellers are in very hard circumstances. If we say nothing but what has been said before us, we are dull and have observed nothing. If we tell anything new, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic.

There aren't that many monsters. It's very hard to create a new monster.

'The Fades' is its own world. If you try and link it to some religion, you have people going, 'Oh, that's not right,' with their Bible open. Let's just chuck some imagination at it.

The element of surprise is the most important thing and what keeps me interested in writing. I can feel it if I've written that predictable or boring line, and I will carry that around with me all day.

I like the Albino Rhino. That was kind of cool. Of all the other nicknames people give out, I thought it was really unique.

Invention is activity of mind, as fire is air in motion; a sharpening of the spiritual sight, to discern hidden aptitudes.

The imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than Nature goes.

The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real.

A game: say something. Close your eyes and say something. Anything, a number, a name. Like this (she closes her eyes): Two, two what? Two women. What do they look like? Wearing black. Where are they? In a park. . . . And then, what are they doing? Try it, it's so easy, why don't you want to play? You know, that's how I talk to myself when I'm alone, I tell myself all kinds of stories. And not only silly stories: actually, I live this way altogether.

If you are a dreamer come in If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer If youre a pretender com sit by my fire For we have some flax golden tales to spin Come in! Come in!

You would have to be half-mad to dream me up.

What is originality? To see something that is as yet without a name, that is as yet impossible to designate, even though it staresus in the face. The way it usually is with people, it is a thing's name that makes it perceptible to them in the first place.--For the most part, the original ones have also been the name-givers.

Creativity is magic. Don't examine it too closely.

Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better.

All my originality consists?in giving life in human fashion to beings which are impossible according to the laws of possibility.

The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real. When it adheres to the unreal and intensifies what is unreal, while its first effect may be extraordinary, that effect is the maximum effect that it will ever have.

Exercise your imagination muscle! How many uses can you come up with for a flowerpot? Write down your answers. But don't write them in this book. Grab a separate sheet of paper. I didn't spend two and a half weeks writing a book just so you could mark up the pages with your silly ideas for things you can do with a flowerpot. When it comes down to it, what's wrong with a flowerpot not being a flowerpot? Why is nothing ever good enough for you?