Barry Jenkins Quotes

I am just like everyone else.

There were times in my career when I would try to write songs like Bob Dylan... Artists get hooked up in that. To be a follower, you lose.

If you're trying to please everyone, then you're not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don't think, in the long run.

I'd hate it if everyone in the world liked me, my music and what I wore. It'd make it boring, and I wouldn't have anything to work towards. It's not to everyone's taste, but I can only be me.

Being me is no different than being most anyone else, I guess.

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 really want as many people as possible to relate to something, without compromising or dumbing down.

I always felt in my band and in the pop-rock format that I wasn't weird enough, that I wasn't standing out enough. Wearing things to get people's attention - I didn't want to do any of that. I didn't want to compromise myself.

Imitation is for shirkers, like-minded-ness for the comfort lovers, unifying for the creators.

I feel like it's important, especially at young age, to find exactly what it is that makes your style so important as opposed to just trying to fit into the iconic styles of performers out there.

Don't try to write to the trend of the moment.

Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

I don't want to write formula. I don't want to crank these books out like sausages. Every book is different, which takes a hell of a lot of ingenuity on my part.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

I'm human, just like anybody else.

I wanted each of my books to be very different from the others, each to be special and uncategorizable, and I knew I could only do that a few times before I was in danger of repeating myself.

The best advice I've received is to be yourself. The best artists do that.

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

I think the key to great art and great artists is to just fully be yourself and not be scared of that, and be the extremes of your personality. Show the extremes of your personality and embrace the imperfections. Embrace the things about yourself that you might not like.

There's no point that an album should sound like a watered down version of another album.

When you're just like everybody else, you've nothing to offer other than your conformity.

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

No age is compelled to take its beauty from preceding epochs.

Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.

Mainstream to me equals boring, so I don't want to be doing that.