Cecil Taylor Quotes

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

I never wanted to be like anyone growing up. It's always been about the enjoyment, and I've just never wanted to imitate anyone.

Each individual's way is going to be different. Never follow anybody. That is the greatest calamity that can happen to a man. Once you start following somebody else, you become a carbon copy. You become an imitation.

There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own.

I pay for what I call eccentricity and my will to evolve.

People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.

I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal.

I love people that willfully defy what you're supposed to be and create their own definition of their selves.

Don't look at all at what other people are doing. Think of what you're doing as completely fresh because if you imitate you're dead.

Keep your mind open about what you want to do and be true to yourself. So many people are governed by what's 'in' or copy something that someone else has done.

Sometimes you find your voice by trying to write like people, and sometimes you find it by trying to write unlike people.

At WSX I think I was very much trying to figure it out on my own and we were creating our own style and our own thing. I can only speak for myself, I was not trying to be anything. I was not trying to be like anyone else.

I certainly wouldn't want to be a Mini Me of any of the people whose footsteps I've followed in.

Living courageously in your uniqueness is really important: just being completely yourself. I know that sounds really cliche, but just do what you want to do.

I don't want to emulate anyone.

I don't want to be anyone's mimic.

Be stupid, be dumb, be funny, if that's who you are. Don't try to be someone that society wants you to be; that's stupid. So be yourself.

You start comparing yourself to other people, you end up trying to be that person. You've got to be your own person, do it your own way. You can be motivated by somebody, but you don't have to take after them.

Write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

Tis' better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else's perfectly.

Be neither a conformist or a rebel, for they are really the same thing. Find your own path, and stay on it.

I realised that conforming didn't accomplish anything. Do your own thing. As long as you learn that, you're cool.

If you're always looking at someone else, trying to imitate them, how can your natural gifts ever emerge?

Develop your legitimate strangeness.

Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.