Hayao Miyazaki Quotes

You'd have to be completely crazy not to be influenced by and take from other artists. It's completely impossible not to.

I take stuff because I'm inspired by it.

I don't think I really invented anybody. I have drawn on real life.

Anytime something becomes a success in this way you always get imitators. I'm an imitator of the guys I love. I imitate people like Frank Miller, who is a huge inspiration to me.

The way that I'm working now is basically the way I've been working since I was a kid: Find the greatest artist in whatever you do, and rip them off with respect. I think there's a big difference between ripping off with respect and ripping off in disrespect.

Some of us have great original ideas and some of us depend on adaptations.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

I get to study and I got to mimic and what I basically did was I stole from every person that I could steal from. I was an imitator. That's what I was. It was years before I could take all of these things that I loved about all of these different artists and put them together and find my voice.

Blake is damned good to steal from.

Everyone steals from something or someone.

Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild.

Composers shouldn't think too much - it interferes with their plagiarism.

You cannot possibly invent painting all by yourself.

I don't really care who gets their inspiration from where, it's the end results that count.

When starting a project, your influences are the things around you. It doesn't mean you have to sound like it or look like it or anything. It's just something new, and your curiosity becomes enthralled by it.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

It's easy for a singer to sometimes pick up on another singer's sound, but that's just copying.

It's intimidating any time to have a piece of art that someone else created, and that person says, 'Let's see what you created based on what I created.'

If you look at any creative person's work, you can see bits and pieces of their influences. That's what an artist does.

There's nothing new, even 'new' is inspired by something. We're all, either consciously or unconsciously, we're inspired.

When I take from my influences, it's rare that I do it literally.

All art is theft.

Sometimes, I think filmmakers grab too much from real life.

I don't particularly look at other artists when I'm working. But references do come into my work intuitively.

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.