[ycombinete]

I wonder if that Tarantino response is apocryphal. I have heard the same interaction credited to Joseph Heller about Catch-22:

At appearances to publicise his later books, readers would often bluntly tell him that he hadn’t written anything as good as Catch-22, to which the reply, after a growly laugh, was: “No. But nor has anyone else.” - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/20/george-clooney...

[nindalf]

They asked him why he hadn’t been able to come up with a better joke to address that question. He replied with a laugh “no, but nor has anyone else”.

[bryanrasmussen]

Or perhaps when you create something exceptionally good you end up coming up with this response to the no doubt often repeated question of why you haven't been able to top it, or reading about someone else with the same problem and thinking "hey, that's good - think I'll use it"