Steven Soderbergh Quotes

If you look at the most meaningful science fiction, it didn't come from watching other films. We seem to be in a place now where filmmakers make films based on other films because that's where the stimuli and influence comes from.

I'm still fighting. I don't know how much longer, but I'm still fighting a struggle, which is to make cinema alive and not just make another film.

One painter ought never to imitate the manner of any other; because in that case he cannot be called the child of nature, but the grandchild. It is always best to have recourse to nature, which is replete with such abundance of objects, than to the productions of other masters, who learnt everything from her.

When the original is well chosen and judiciously copied, the imitator often arrives at excellence which he could never have attained without direction; for few are formed with abilities to discover new possibilities of excellence, and to distinguish themselves by means never tried before.

When I start writing songs, and they come easily, I'm always very suspicious. That usually means they're reminding me of something I've already done before. When the songs become unsettling, and I feel anxious about what I'm doing, that usually means it's going to be more interesting later on when we actually record the stuff.

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

I think with a lot of filmmakers, their first film is their best film because they had to think on their feet and solve problems with ingenuity.

All of my heroes, like Dali, are people who pioneered various forms of cinema.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

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

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

If you read all the time what other people have done, you will the think the way they thought.

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.

I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.

You cannot possibly invent painting all by yourself.

If you look at any 15 pieces of mine, nobody does a piece like them. Totally new techniques. All the jugglers are stealing from me and claiming that they've done it.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

The most original minds borrowed from one another.

Looking back now, if I went to film school, it probably would have helped knowing what the best of the best of foreign films were, but that wasn't the case. In some ways, I think that led to my originality, because I hadn't seen anybody else.

There's nothing new, even 'new' is inspired by something. We're all, either consciously or unconsciously, we're inspired.

Spike Lee's been doing it for a long time now. We're all standing on his shoulders.

Kurosawa was truly inventive.

You got to be able to reinvent yourself and come up with new ideas because everybody is going to try to copy, which is what you want. You want people to start saying what you say.