David Shields

In many senses, creativity and 'plagiarism' are nearly indivisible. ”

I've always liked this idea that writing should comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable to create trouble. The value of a work of art can be measured by the harm spoken of it. If you're not feeling that, then absolutely, why bother? ”

I'm really drawn toward work that is trying to capture what it's like to think now and to live now. ”

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. ”

As a work gets more autobiographical, more intimate, more confessional, more embarrassing, it breaks into fragments. ”

In the case of the Web, each of us has slightly more access to a mass audience - a few more people slide through the door - but Facebook is finally a crude, personal multimedia conglomerate machine, personal nation-state machine, reality-show machine. New gadgets alter social patterns, new media eclipse old ones, but the pyramid never goes away. ”

I believe in copyright, within limited precincts. But I also believe in fair use, public domain, and especially transformation. ”

Art, like science, progresses, and to me it's bizarre that a lot of acclaimed and popular and respectable books are not advancing the art form. ”