Charles Mingus Quotes

Imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery - it's plagiarism.

Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from, as pickpockets are observed commonly to walk with their hands in their breeches' pockets.

If all you've got is somebody else's stuff that you've lifted, nothing really deep, then it is going to thin out.

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.

Taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism.

I know imitation is the highest form of flattery, but stealing one's identity is totally different.

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.

I hate it when people just downright copy. I hate it.

Most authors steal their works, or buy.

Everyone plagiarizes me. Ever since I wrote my autobiography.

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

When a writer tries to copy another writer, it's doomed to fail.

When you snatch little pieces of other people's lives and try to palm them off as your own, that's more disgusting than anything. Robin Williams is a huge thief. Denis Leary is a huge thief. His whole stand-up career is based on Bill Hicks, a brilliant guy who died years ago.

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

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

No, generally I think influence is used as a nice word for plagiarism.

Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don't know in your own soul.

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

The comics I hate are thieves. Nothing's more disgusting than a guy who steals another person's ideas and tries to claim them as his own.

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

If you copy then it is not self-expression.

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

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

Blake is damned good to steal from.

Everyone steals from something or someone.