Owen Wister Quotes

He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library.

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

If you copy then it is not self-expression.

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.

An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.

I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.

Do not borrow the productions of other men's brains and pens and recite them as a lesson; but make the most of the talents, the brain power, that God has given you.

If you do come up with a new idea, in 4 seconds it will belong to somebody else.

I say to my pupils, 'You can pitch me any thing you've got, but tell me why you're the only person who can write it in the world. Keep digging.'

I don't want nobody to ever say, 'I coulda done that beat' or 'I know where you got that from.'

Borrowed eloquence, if it contains as good stuff, is as good as own eloquence

Existing is plagiarism.

It is a poor wit who lives by borrowing the words, decisions, mien, inventions and actions of others.

Are you copying others? People won't pay extra for that. You won't be followed for that.

Imitation has to be avoided. Understanding should be the only law, never imitation.

Someone very smart once said to me, "Steal, don't borrow." So if there's anything good in anything anyone else does, it's fair game. I think that everything I've ever done at some point is part of someone else's legacy.

Man is an idiot. He doesn't know how to do anything without copying, without imitating, without plagiarizing, without aping. It might even have been that man invented generation by coitus after seeing the grasshopper copulate.

The idea comes to me from outside of me - and is like a gift. I then take the idea and make it my own - that is where the skill lies.

The actual and valuable material of all human utterances —is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.

Never hesitate to steal a good idea.

Everything all of us do is stolen from somebody.

Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower.

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

Hey, Christian rock, if you want to be good, stop copying U2. U2 already did it. You know what I mean? There's a lot of U2-esque Christian rock.

If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.