Pete Seeger Quotes

If Shakespeare had lived in our age, he would have been sued for writing Romeo And Juliet, because as everybody knows, he plagiarized that from an Italian play.

Inspiration and stealing are two completely different things. If somebody wants to make a song like "Stairway to Heaven" and writes a song on acoustic guitar, Led Zeppelin does not own every song that's on acoustic guitar for the rest of time.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

I rip off of every movie and TV show I've ever seen in my life.

There's a lot of thievery involved in writing. You're breaking into other people's spaces and other people's stories.

Plagiarism is necessary, progress implies it

I try not to steal from myself, but the modalities create similarities.

All writers are thieves; theft is a necessary tool of the trade.

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

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research.

Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

I don't read much of what I write because I worry about unintentionally borrowing something.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

I don't steal stories. If I'm a plagiarist, so is Hitchcock. And Tolkien. And Shakespeare.

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

Blake is damned good to steal from.

I steal from every movie ever made.

You're creating new things in movies and people are going to steal them.

Self-plagiarism is style.

Be wary of cutting and pasting research nuggets directly into your manuscript.