There are no original ideas. There are only original people.

Originality, the quote suggests, doesn't come from inventing something nobody has thought before. Love, loss, fairness, and ambition have been turned over for thousands of years, and the old line from Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun already says as much. What changes is the person who takes up an idea, with their own history, stubbornness, humor, and scars. An idea becomes fresh when it passes through a particular life and comes out sounding like no one else.

This fits the work of an essayist and memoirist like Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, whose writing relied on personal voice and lived experience more than on novel theories. The line is widely attributed to her, though quotations like this often circulate without a precise source.

In practice, it can free you from the fear of having nothing new to say. Suppose you're asked to give a toast at a friend's wedding and worry that every thought about love has been said before. You could stop hunting for a clever angle and tell one true, specific story about that friend, in your own words. The idea is familiar, but the telling will belong only to you.