Roger Deakins Quotes

Imitation always stinks. When I take photos, I don't go back. I don't look at the past. I'm always original.

If you can't imitate him, don't copy him.

Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character.

It's hard work to find your own voice and not to copycat anything.

I like to create something that's unique and kind of true to myself and authentic and everything. I don't really like to mirror myself after different artists.

Sometimes you find your voice by trying to write like people, and sometimes you find it by trying to write unlike people.

I never wanted the temptation to imitate or emulate something that had been done beforehand.

An artist must be very careful not to look for models. As soon as one artist takes another as model, he is lost. There is no other point of departure than reality.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.

If someone asks me what inspires me, I always say, "That which is missing," because I don't want to copy everything that's already happening. I feel like when you copy, you blend in, and when you blend in, you get lost.

Everybody is completely different. I think there is no formula for filmmaking. Everybody finds their own way of doing things.

But I do nothing that I don't like, such as "inventing" up to the arty or "down" to the corny. I happen to relish a certain type of corn. What I think is the really dangerous approach is the "let's be artistic" attitude. I know that artistry just happens.

As for me, the only stuff I've ever had success with is when I'm trying to be completely original and not thinking about mirroring what else is out there.

Great writers create; writers of smaller gifts copy

No one ever became great by imitation.

The world is forever babbling of originality; but there never yet was an original man, in the sense intended by the world; the first man himself--who according to the Rabbins was also the first author--not being an original; the only original author being God.

I don't think anybody came into the movie business to be unoriginal and plagiarising and not having an original idea in their brain.

Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

I've never really tried to copy anyone; I like to have my own style.

No man was ever great by imitation.

I wanted each of my books to be very different from the others, each to be special and uncategorizable, and I knew I could only do that a few times before I was in danger of repeating myself.

The only thing I really recommend, if you're starting out in stand-up is to not try to copy anybody else. You can be influenced by people. I was influenced by Steve Martin and Bob Newhart and Woody Allen, but I never tried to be someone else. I always tried to be myself. And the reason people are successful is they're unique.

To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.