Dorothy L. Sayers Quotes

I'm kind of surprised that so many of those other books were almost exactly like mine. They even follow the form. There were some books that even copied the stamp. It shows so little imagination.

Borrowed eloquence, if it contains as good stuff, is as good as own eloquence

Stale is stale and borrowed is borrowed, no matter how original your models may have been.

I don't think anybody came into the movie business to be unoriginal and plagiarising and not having an original idea in their brain.

No, generally I think influence is used as a nice word for plagiarism.

Originality is the art of concealing your source.

Taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism.

I think anything created today can be said to be a ripoff. It's hard to find anything original any more.

I'm no innovator. If anything I'm a stealer, or borrower. I've stolen or borrowed from more people than you can shake a stick at.

If you imitate someone, you owe them a royalty check. If you emulate them, you don't. There's a big difference. Check your lawyer.

It is generally supposed that where there is no QUOTATION, there will be found most originality; and as people like to lay out their money according to their notions, our writers usually furnish their pages rapidly with the productions of their own soil: they run up a quickset hedge, or plant a poplar, and get trees and hedges of this fashion much faster than the former landlords procured their timber. The greater part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are never quoted!

Everything all of us do is stolen from somebody.

Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower.

Authors from whom others steal should not complain, but rejoice. Where there is no game there are no poachers.

When a writer tries to copy another writer, it's doomed to fail.

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

Whatever is well said by another, is mine.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

We call ourselves creators and we just copy.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

Well, you might as well imitate your own program because if you don't, someone else will.

Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don't know in your own soul.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

If you copy then it is not self-expression.

I take stuff because I'm inspired by it.