Adam Brody Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

I'm trying to have my own thing, and I don't know if it's even possible. I didn't realize so many people actually think I'm trying to be like my dad. I read comments like 'She's no Elvis.' I'm not trying to be. I never set out to be.

We call ourselves creators and we just copy.

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

No man was ever great by imitation.

Over the years, I think, people - actors, writers, whatever - lose their frame of reference. Their frame of reference is based on somebody else who did this or did that. Performances. So it just becomes a reflection of what already works. Like a warm-up. And that's an invitation to be inauthentic.

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.

No, generally I think influence is used as a nice word for plagiarism.

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.

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

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

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.

To form our taste, we must neither depreciate nor imitate, but we should understand and originate.

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.

I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry.

If I think about the writers I love or might be influenced by, I can't write at all, so I pretend there aren't any.

Young writers often mistakenly choose a certain vein or style based on who they want to be, unconsciously trying to blot out who they actually are. You want to escape yourself.

The great man who gives a true transcript of his mind fascinates and instructs. Most writers suppress individuality. They wish to please the public.

The music is a personal expression, like art. It is something that you like doing that comes from within, and is an expression that comes from God. That is why artists are beautiful and why people who copy are not really artistic.

We're all going to keep telling love stories, we're all going to tell hero stories. It's all a question of what your own thumbprint, your own DNA, is, and what it brings to the table that makes it unique.

Don't imitate. Write what you know about, that has to be your goal.