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“For several years, I had been bored. Not a whining, restless child's boredom (although I was not above that) but a dense, blanketing malaise. It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasé: Seeeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script.

It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.

And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls.

It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else.

I would have done anything to feel real again.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“Seeing what someone's reading is like seeing the first derivative of their thinking.”
― Ben Casnocha, The Startup of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career

“I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.”
― Charles Kuralt

“I would rather die than be derivative.”
― E.A. Carter

“The harder a government, such as a dictatorship, tries to maintain monetary policy autonomy, the more it must either limit the movement of capital into and outside of the country, or the more it must compromise exchange-rate stability.”
― Janet M. Tavakoli, Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures: A Guide to Instruments and Applications, 2nd Edition

“No doubt you’ve heard the phrase 'ignorance of the law is no excuseâ€�, and are probably familiar with the statist meaning of that phrase: Being ignorant of a law is no excuse for breaking it. However 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' also has a less-well-known libertarian meaning: This is an ignorant law and there’s no excuse for it!”
― Starchild

“One real difference between art and craft: with craft, perfection is possible. In that sense the Western definition of craft closely matches the Eastern definition of art. In Eastern cultures, art that faithfully carries forward the tradition of an elder master is honored; in the West it is put down as derivative.”
― David Bayles and Ted Orland