Jim Jefferies Quotes

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.

I didn't want to feel like I was mimicking or copying someone else's performance, whether it's subconscious or not.

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.

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

In fact, I don't watch a lot of contemporary comedy for fear of being influenced by it.

Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so.

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

No man was ever great by imitation.

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.

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.

Hey, Christian rock, if you want to be good, stop copying U2. U2 already did it. You know what I mean? There's a lot of U2-esque Christian rock.

I couldn't imitate anyone if I wanted to.

If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.

I'd rather do my own performance than copy someone else's.

People always ask me who my role models are and who I want to be like, and I don't wanna be like anybody; I wanna be me. I look up to a lot of people, and they have had great influences on me, but I wanna be original and different.

I don't want nobody to ever say, 'I coulda done that beat' or 'I know where you got that from.'

The more you see somebody else's version of something, the harder it is to make it your own.

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

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

I think that my father would find it so confusing that people want to imitate him. Not because he didn't have confidence in who he was, but because he never imitated anybody. He was his own person.

When a writer tries to copy another writer, it's doomed to fail.

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.

We call ourselves creators and we just copy.