Michael Heizer Quotes

Art is either revolution or plagiarism

I'm usually the last to see my influence in other people's work. People give me stuff and say "Oh look, this guy's ripping you off," and I'm like "What do you mean?" Often I see the people that I've ripped off filtered into my own work. In other people's work, I can only see specific, tiny little instances of inflections stolen from another artist.

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

I can understand when people copy people of the past and make the future their own.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

You find a lot of ideas from my shows in adverts now. I find it a compliment.

In a way I spend my entire life stealing from everything - from the past, from cities I love, from where I grew up - grabbing things, taking not only from architecture but from Italy, art, writing, poetry, music.

Yes, influences are enriching, and they can be found in every work of art, even the most original.

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.'

I'm not trying to feed off of a concept that another artist had - that's not what I do.

Artists, by definition innocent, don't steal. But they do borrow without giving back.

I don't think there's anything really wrong with influence because I think that one can use another man's art as material either literally or just implying that they're doing that, without it representing a lack of a point of view.

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

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.

Probably 90 percent of the stuff I make has inevitably been done before... Whether it's playing Hamlet, which has been on the go for 400 years, or pieces from the cinematic world that also have been essayed before, I feel released by that.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

In other words, musicians know that going back to the Spoonful, what we were doing was not copying.

I decided that if my work contained what I could identify as a likeness to other work, I would remove it.'

I take stuff because I'm inspired by it.

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.

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.

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.