Elizabeth McCracken Quotes

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

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

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

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

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

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.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.

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

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.

All writers are magpies, right? We're always stealing bits from different places and then weaving them into our little nest.

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

I am suspicious of writers who say their work is original and influenced by nobody. If it is, it is probably uninteresting. The biggest source of novels is other novels.

It's so funny, I'm always stealing from Moliere, and nobody ever notices. I steal from him willy-nilly.

The last thing you want to do as a creator is take something of someone else's when you love him.

As not every instance of similitude can be considered as a proof of imitation, so not every imitation ought to be stigmatised as plagiarism. The adoption of a noble sentiment, or the insertion of a borrowed ornament, may sometimes display so much judgment as will almost compensate for invention; and an inferior genius may, without any imputation of servility, pursue the paths of the ancients, provided he declines to tread in their footsteps.

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

Most authors steal their works, or buy.

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.

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

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.