James Ivory Quotes

It's hard work to find your own voice and not to copycat anything.

I realized that I could try to sound like Waylon Jennings, or I could try to be like Waylon Jennings... but it's impossible to do both.

The only thing I really recommend, if you're starting out in stand-up is to not try to copy anybody else. You can be influenced by people. I was influenced by Steve Martin and Bob Newhart and Woody Allen, but I never tried to be someone else. I always tried to be myself. And the reason people are successful is they're unique.

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.

There were times in my career when I would try to write songs like Bob Dylan... Artists get hooked up in that. To be a follower, you lose.

Imitation is a caricature. Any imitation. Find out for yourself.

If you can't imitate him, don't copy him.

You can’t learn your craft by copying me or anyone else. I hope what I do can do is in some way inspire others but I would be appalled if I thought my work was being studied as ‘the right way to do the job’. My way is just one of an infinite number of ways to do the job.

If you spend your life walking through somebody else's museum, you never find out whether you're Rembrandt or not.

Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character.

I think the beauty of the film industry is that if another person tries to become another person or act like another person or imitate another person, they don't really get too far. When that person starts to realize who they are and what they can bring to the table, they start to blossom and grow. With that, it's not so much me looking towards my predecessors who have paved the way in the industry - it's more getting inspired. I get little bits and pieces of what I can take from any and everybody.

Imitation always stinks. When I take photos, I don't go back. I don't look at the past. I'm always original.

You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling.

I feel like it's important, especially at young age, to find exactly what it is that makes your style so important as opposed to just trying to fit into the iconic styles of performers out there.

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

Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

I've never really tried to copy anyone; I like to have my own style.

No one can write like Vallejo and not sound like a fraud. He's just too much himself and not you.

To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.

I feel, as an artist, I should be able to express who I am and the things I come from, and the places I want to also be.

I didn't start to work until I realized what it was I had to offer. I stopped imitating performers I admired and started just being myself.

Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

I wanna be more like the Rihanna kind of, Beyonce kind of thing, but I don't want to compare myself to anybody, because I wanna be somebody new, too.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.