Richard Matheson Quotes

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

When it comes to other people's writing, my older influences are more powerful than more recent ones, partially because I'm now more worried that I'll suddenly accidentally steal something from another writer.

When I was 7 years old, I plagiarized, word for word, stories from science fiction magazines so my teachers would think I was smart.

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

Plagiarism is basic to all culture

To copy is to invite disaster.

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

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.

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

When you snatch little pieces of other people's lives and try to palm them off as your own, that's more disgusting than anything. Robin Williams is a huge thief. Denis Leary is a huge thief. His whole stand-up career is based on Bill Hicks, a brilliant guy who died years ago.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

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.

Too afraid of plagiarising someone, so I stopped reading fiction in 1981.

If you copy then it is not self-expression.

I decided that if my work contained what I could identify as a likeness to other work, I would remove it.'

Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.

Blake is damned good to steal from.

Everyone steals from something or someone.

Couture has copied my things for years, in addition to countless other costume designers, claiming theirs were the original ideas. It's all part of the business, unfortunately.

I have an unconscious burglar living in my mind: If I read something, it's mine. I can read Middle English stories, Geoffrey Chaucer or Sir Thomas Malory, but once I start moving in the direction of contemporary fantasy, my mind begins to take over.

I'm a plagiarist - I always look back at other movies, and I steal, but I steal well, and I reinvent.

Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.

The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.