My medium is prose, not the novel. David Shields More Quotes by David Shields More Quotes From David Shields Story seems to say that everything happens for a reason and I want to say, No, it doesn’t. David Shields everything-happens-for-a-reason stories want You're one of 6.5 billion people now on the planet, and 99.9 percent of your genes are the same as everyone else's. David Shields genes humanity people Copies have been dethroned; the economic model built on them is collapsing. In a regime of superabundant free copies, copies are no longer the basis of wealth. Now relationships, links, connections, and sharing are. Value has shifted away from a copy toward the many ways to recall, annotate, personalize, edit, authenticate, display, mark, transfer, and engage a work. Art is a conversation, not a patent office. The citation of sources belongs to the realms of journalism and scholarship, not art. Reality can’t be copyrighted. David Shields economic-models reality art Honesty is the best policy; the only way out is deeper in: a candid confrontation with existence is dizzying, liberating. David Shields best candid honesty way I'm just a totally selfish worker bee creating my little mini projects. David Shields bee just creating selfish Life, in my view, is simple, tragic, and frighteningly beautiful. David Shields view simple beautiful life Take Jonathan Franzen's work: it's just old wine in new bottles. They say he's the Tolstoy of the digital age, but there can only be a Tolstoy of the Tolstoyan age. David Shields new wine age work I think there are people who are born storytellers. I think of someone like T. C. Boyle or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I think really, without putting any pejorative on it, they're like carnival barkers, 'Come into the tent, and I'll tell you this story.' David Shields think you born people I'm trying to use myself and my own flawedness as a metaphor for general human experience. I'm trying to 'stand next to' a subject, whether it's Bobby Knight or Vince Carter, and use that subject to meditate on both him and me. David Shields myself me my-own experience I'm very fond of this phrase: 'Collage is not a refuge for the compositionally disabled.' If you put together the pieces in a really powerful way, I think you'll let a thousand discrepancies bloom. David Shields think you together way I'm not super-polite or civil - I try to be civil, but I'm not into Seattle's niceties, and I'm not hugely wired into Seattle's natural beauty. David Shields natural-beauty try natural beauty In many senses, creativity and 'plagiarism' are nearly indivisible. David Shields many plagiarism senses creativity From the first slave ship arriving in harbor, America stole and judged blacks. Black life that didn't fit into white logic was commercially exploited or lynched. David Shields ship black white life We're all Vanilla Ice. Look at Girl Talk and Danger Mouse. Look at William Burroughs, whose cut-up books antedate hip hop sampling by decades. Shakespeare remixed passages of Holinshed's 'Chronicles' in 'Henry VI.' Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture' embeds the French national anthem. David Shields books talk look girl We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times. David Shields non-fiction live because like I suspect the real reason the N.F.L. and N.B.A. don't want high schoolers and college underclassmen to play with their ball is that they don't want to jeopardize their relationship with National Collegiate Athletic Association, which serves as a sort of free minor league and unpaid promotional department for the pros. David Shields free real college relationship I think the core of fans' relationship is one that vacillates schizophrenically and mercurially from reverence to resentment. Fans fetishize the players' athletic genius and both deify it and demonize it; witness the way awe turns into anger whenever a player holds out or flips off the offensive coordinator. David Shields think anger relationship way In music, they're not endlessly rewriting Beethoven's 'Third Symphony;' in visual art, they aren't painting portraits of 16th-century royalty. Art moves forward. David Shields royalty painting music art I really love that idea of the essay as an investigation. That's all anyone's life is. David Shields essay investigation love life I believe in copyright, within limited precincts. But I also believe in fair use, public domain, and especially transformation. David Shields fair transformation i-believe believe