Laurence Sterne Quotes

Genius Borrows nobly.

An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

I rip off of every movie and TV show I've ever seen in my life.

Nothing is sillier than this charge of plagiarism. There is no sixth commandment in art. The poet dare help himself wherever he lists, wherever he finds material suited to his work. He may even appropriate entire columns with their carved capitals, if the temple he thus supports be a beautiful one. Goethe understood this very well, and so did Shakespeare before him.

There's a lot of thievery involved in writing. You're breaking into other people's spaces and other people's stories.

Great genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at all; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world do all, and suffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the mind.

Someone very smart once said to me, "Steal, don't borrow." So if there's anything good in anything anyone else does, it's fair game. I think that everything I've ever done at some point is part of someone else's legacy.

All writers are thieves; theft is a necessary tool of the trade.

Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

A big talent steals, a small talent borrows.

Sometimes a line enters your head, and you're so grateful for it. You go online to check to see if anyone wrote it before you. You must have stolen it.

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

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research.

Once you get into the world of dystopia, it's hard to avoid plagiarism, because other people have had such powerful visions.

There is no less invention in aptly applying a thought found in a book, than in being the first author of the thought.

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

Of course creativity is a mystery. We don't know what drives it or what constitutes it. It's one of those things, like genius, you know it when you see it but it's impossible to define.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

We call ourselves creators and we just copy.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

The ability to make new work from old work - especially if that new work is different enough that it doesn't dent the market for the old work - is something that benefits all creators, since so few can claim not to have a giant or 10 supporting them underneath.

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