Pankaj Mishra Quotes

Almost every modern literary form existed in Hebrew two thousand years ago. And, yes, it existed even during the middle ages.

The novel as we knew it in the nineteenth century was killed off by Proust and Joyce.

The idea is more important than the style you're playing in.

My method is related to an attempt to do something that might be understood by today's world, or that could at least provide understanding. In other words, doing something I understand and that everyone understands. This natural desire for communication is also found in other domains, like reading and discourse, etc. I also hate repeating myself; it gives me no pleasure whatsoever. Once I've understood something, I need to start off on new ground.

Nowadays filmmakers tend to recycle the same cliches over and over again.

There's a paradox in the notion that creativity should be a habit. We think of creativity as a way of keeping everything fresh and new, while habit implies routine and repetition. That paradox intrigues me because it occupies the place where creativity and skill rub up against each other.

I don't want to repeat myself. I hate the idea of coasting and of recycling the same ideas. Then, you're just subject to the law of diminishing returns.

I've always been a fan, so my enthusiasm has always been great, but it's never going to be the same as it was from 1970 to 1975. You cannot repeat that, but you can get inspired by searching, by being mystified.

I try not to repeat myself. It's the hardest thing in the world to do -- there are only so many notes one human being can master. .

I never feel I repeat myself. I really go out of my way to amuse myself. I would be bored stiff. If I feel the déjavu when I'm doing something, I stop and rethink and rework it.

I don't like the fact that no one has any imagination anymore. It doesn't pay to be a dreamer because all they really want you to do is answer the phone. Nobody wants you to think about anything new or use your brain or make anything interesting because everything important has already been made. America is over; it's done being brilliant.Everything genius has already been built, like all the great works of art have already been produced.

I think we can be very narrow-minded in this country; you see something that someone's done and immediately want them to do the same thing again - but if they don't, they're criticised for not doing the same thing again, but if they do they're just repeating themselves.

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.

Every story has already been told. Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had.

You come out of the gate, you've got something new, you're subversive, nobody's ever done it before. But by your fifth novel and your fourth literary prize and your house in the country, can you really claim to be subversive?

You are [as an actor] aware that you don't want to repeat stuff, but you want to use what has worked. But you don't want to be accused of just going over the old thing, you know? You want it to start growing a little bit more.

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

We all get caught up in the process, especially when you have a wave of success. But to me, being creative is not about rehashing everything you've done over and over. It's to continue to grow, continue to get better.

You mustn't expect me to repeat myself. My past doesn't interest me. I would rather copy others than copy myself. In that way I should at least be giving them something new. I love discovering things.

Stale is stale and borrowed is borrowed, no matter how original your models may have been.

When you make something that everyone likes, it's very easy to say, "Well, I'll just repeat that." Because that was easy. I have a formula. But creatively, it's not very interesting.

It's always about trying to do something that's different and not repeating yourself because then you lose your creative stamina. You need to have new challenges.

Oftentimes an originator of new language forms is called 'pretentious' by jealous talents. But it ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.

What I am interested in doing is finding and expressing a new form of life

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.