Creative Reuse Quotes

The most beautiful thing about a tree is what you do with it after you cut it down.

The street finds its own uses for things.

I just thought it made sense to call a book 'Not Garbage,' even though the majority of it was going to be the scraps from people's studios; like newspaper clippings, weird drawings and stuff they might not necessarily show as artists.

Riffs are a repeating thing. They come back to you. Some of the things on 'Back in Black' were ideas we had knocked around on tracks before that: 'That bit - maybe we should take a chunk of that and slug it in here.'

There used to be a lot of industry in Montreal, and now there's not, so it's really easy to get huge, empty spaces where you can practice and make music or make art for very, very cheap.

I converted a family-owned strip club into an improvisational acting theater.

Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind--no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be--there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.

It's fun to take songs from a completely different context and reframe them. We did two mixtape albums called 'Other People's Heartache' and 'Other People's Heartache Pt. 2,' which were full of those kind of covers and mash-ups, mixed with film music and film quotes.

As a child, I was always interested in building things. Instead of buying candy, I would purchase nails, which I used to construct things out of scrap wood. My mother always claimed that my spending my money on nails instead of on candy was why I was so skinny as a kid.

The economy of a novelist is a little like that of a careful housewife who is unwilling to throw away anything that might perhaps serve its turn.

I'm like the king of the low-budget sequel. People ask, 'What film are you gonna do next?' 'I don't know, but it's probably got a 3 or 4 in the title.'

In my opinion, hip-hop has a lot to do with rock and roll, because at one point it was considered an alternative - edgy, independent. Hip-hop is pots and pans the way that punk is garage. You make something out of nothing.

By the way, when you finish the bottle of Crown Royal, you can still use the pouch to hold your broken dreams.

Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.

The ability to make new work from old work - especially if that new work is different enough that it doesn't dent the market for the old work - is something that benefits all creators, since so few can claim not to have a giant or 10 supporting them underneath.

I work with things left over from other things.

Some days I'm very lazy, and some days I'm more inspired. I've got things I've had since I was fifteen - I don't throw anything away. I prefer to give it to a friend so I can wear it again...The way I dress doesn't necessarily have to do with fashion, or what is current, or what is in right now, it's more about rediscovering things.

I don't do sessions for myself ever. I'm always working, writing for pop sessions. And what happens is that sometimes I like a song so much, I keep it for myself.

Every writer from Montaigne to William S. Burroughs has pasted and cut from previous work. Every artist, whether it's Warhol or, you know, Dangermouse or whoever.

I love taking prints, embroidery, appliques - precious things that seem to be from another time - and using them to create a contemporary, new story.

A lot of art and visual crafts are based on appropriating things.

I didn't just sit down and write 'Summer In Kingston' from scratch; it came about from a bunch of songs I already had.

I'm in the middle of my own 'Project Runway' challenge given to me by my daughter's preschool. All the parents have to make an outfit for their kids, for school pictures, made entirely out of recycled objects. I can not believe I have homework.

There is probably some long-standing "rule" among writers, journalists, and other word-mongers that says: "When you start stealing from your own work you're in bad trouble." And it may be true.

I never like to think of any character as being over. I'm always thinking of different ways of bringing them back.