Sonny Rollins Quotes

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

I hate anything that seems like something that has been done.

I'm no innovator. If anything I'm a stealer, or borrower. I've stolen or borrowed from more people than you can shake a stick at.

Authors from whom others steal should not complain, but rejoice. Where there is no game there are no poachers.

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

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.

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

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.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.

I've always been a good imitator. I love music. But I'm just not that original.

I hope that the things that I sing about will be an inspiration for people to be original.

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.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.

The world is forever babbling of originality; but there never yet was an original man, in the sense intended by the world; the first man himself--who according to the Rabbins was also the first author--not being an original; the only original author being God.

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.

There is no intellectual or emotional substitute for the authentic, the original, the unique masterpiece.

Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

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

We call ourselves creators and we just copy.

No man was ever great by imitation.

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.