Wynton Marsalis Quotes

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.

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.

In terms of my actual acting, I don't really like to to copy anyone or replicate anything that I've seen.

Don't do anyone else's version of a hit song - it's gonna sound terrible. You just have to do what you do well and crank it up to 11.

There was no saying I could ever step in and do what John does, because it'd be really hard to be John Williams.

If you try to sound like somebody else, it will never work because we already have that person. You are noticed when you try to be an original sound.

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

When something original works, then everyone wants to copy it. But if you're trying to do something that no one's ever seen before it's frightening.

You can’t learn your craft by copying me or anyone else. I hope what I do can do is in some way inspire others but I would be appalled if I thought my work was being studied as ‘the right way to do the job’. My way is just one of an infinite number of ways to do the job.

I really appreciate people who have their own thing going on and stick to it - super authentic. The people who wear something and you're just like "oh, it looks so good!" it's because it's them. They're not trying to be anything.

Don’t try to be anybody else because that’s what makes you not swaggy.

Bring individuality into things, do not just be an imitator. To imitate is to miss life.

You can't try to be somebody you're not; that's not style.

I had this great teacher, Milton Katselas, who was this loud Greek who had directed Bette Davis and Liv Ullmann, and brought Edward Albee to this country. He said, "Why do you keep trying to be a Rolex watch when you're the salt of the earth?" Except he said it much louder.

I'm trying to steal from everybody. So yeah, there's cats that I'm personally affiliated with - Carl Franklin, Paul Thomas Anderson - and others that I don't know personally but their work I'm a big admirer of, like Martin Scorsese. But I'm hoping to come up with a language that is mine, that's specific to my take on this material.

Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators.

As nature made every man with a nose and eyes of his own, she gave him a character of his own, too; and yet we, O foolish race! must try our very best to ape some one or two of our neighbors, whose ideas fit us no more than their breeches!

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.

You must neither completely nor partially copy the art of others. If so, you will be producing kitsch.

My game is me. I didn't try to pattern my game after nobody.

The true is inimitable, the false untransformable.

While everybody is trying to be different, everybody becomes, obviously, the same, so it's finding what makes you special and then kind of sharing it with the world; it's what makes you a superstar.

Don't try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.

My style is unique and it's my own. I do not try to copy or imitate anybody.

Well if I could play like Wynton, I wouldn't play like Wynton.