David Lagercrantz Quotes

I remember when I was in art classes, I hated following the assignments. And I would get in trouble for doing something totally different or taking it in a weird direction.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

I have a really, really, really normal family. And by normal I mean we're all nuts on some level. I think you've gotta be a little nuts to pursue any kind of creative job. I was also a really good kid. I know that sounds really dull, but I didn't rebel in the traditional sense.

The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

I think of myself as unconventional, I guess. I maybe always had a problem with authority, like a stubbornness about what's expected - despite wanting to get some recognition through performing - but also not always wanting to do the expected thing.

I don't like anything in the mainstream and they don't like me.

Yes, I think I am a genius, but not a rebel.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

A genius is someone with the ability to come up with ideas that are new, surprising and valuable.

Conformists die, but heretics live forever.

The interesting adults are always the school failures, the weird ones, the losers, the malcontents, this isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the rule.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

Genius disregards the boundaries of propriety. Genius is permitted to shout if shouting is productive.

All art is based on non-conformity.

Because the only people for me are the mad ones.

The fellow is either a madman or a poet.

A genius is a mentally ill person with an audience

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa-aa-aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!

To be really great and interesting, you have to be a little crazy. I just don't think one comes without the other.

All kids are born geniuses, but are crushed by society.

There has never been any great genius without a spice of madness.

Sanctity and genius are as rebellious as vice.

We''re all misfits here,” he says, almost proudly. “That's why I started this squat, after all. For people like us, who don't fit in anywhere else. Halfies and homos and hopeless romantics, the outcast and outrageous and terminally weird. That's where art comes from, Jimmy, my friend. From our weirdnesses and our differences, from our manic fixations, our obsessions, our passions. From all those wild and wacky things that make each of us unique.

In the faculty of writing nonsense, stupidity is no match for genius.

They think I'm crazy and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius.