David Duchovny Quotes

Sometimes a line enters your head, and you're so grateful for it. You go online to check to see if anyone wrote it before you. You must have stolen it.

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

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.

While I am not a journalist, I have, myself, written more than one thing that has been plagiarized in the past.

Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow" - I'm sorry, now, I wrote it! But I can tell you anyhow, I'll kill you if you quote it!

I have myself always been terrified of plagiarism - of being accused of it, that is. Every writer is a thief, though some of us are more clever than others at disguising our robberies. The reason writers are such slow readers is that we are ceaselessly searching for things we can steal and then pass off as our own: a natty bit of syntax, a seamless transition, a metaphor that jumps to its target like an arrow shot from an aluminum crossbow.

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

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.

Self-plagiarism is style.

I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

Mr. Fitzgerald, I believe that is how he spells his name, seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

I want to write books.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.

I think the most important thing is just to write. It sounds so simple, but sometimes it's not. You can get so distracted - -by having to work other jobs, or what other people have to say about your writing - -but the one thing that really matters is that you just keep going, especially when you're working on a novel. It's so easy to get discouraged and give up.

For me, reading books and writing them are tied together. The words of other writers teach me and refresh me and inspire me.

One of the easiest things in the world is not to write... If it were easy, everyone would do it.

I've lost my writing skills since college. I couldn't write a book. It would take a long time.

To be a writer you should read, write and talk to people, hear their knowledge, hear their problems. Be a good listener. The rest will come.

Most authors steal their works, or buy.

Writing a novel is a lot like reading one.

Like most-maybe all- writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books.

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

I'm not sure I have the physical strength to undertake a novel.

'Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years.