Whit Stillman Quotes

We all borrow and steal and copy from each other, and that's the way I think people get inspired.

If anything, it's a little intimidating because there's usually a lot of brilliant work and a lot of brilliant ideas out there that you wish you had thought of, or that you just admire for the originality of it or the difference from what you've been thinking of.

I admire people who are creative.

'White Rabbit' was mostly done in about two days, the music in about half an hour. The music is a 'Bolero' rip-off and the lyrics a rearrangement of 'Alice in Wonderland.' You take two spectacular hits and throw them together, and it's hard to miss.

I think anything created today can be said to be a ripoff. It's hard to find anything original any more.

I think that that's the way the music grows and changes and becomes new and creative and vital. It's by synthesizing elements from all around it and not to maintain this kind of rigid myopic kind of tunnel vision, in a sense, trying to maintain a certain kind of purity, or whatever.

I think that other people covering my work is really exciting... Im really open to that kind of thing because I think interpretation is an art form.

I'm no innovator. If anything I'm a stealer, or borrower. I've stolen or borrowed from more people than you can shake a stick at.

Usually, the best ideas come from other people's good ideas, which then, after a short gestation period, become your ideas.

I think that there are many ways in which people look for heroes, messiahs, things like that in society. I think some people are looking for something that maybe they don't possess. To me, ultimately, you are looking for someone who understands you, or at least you think understands you. It all comes down to understanding for who we look to as heroes.

You think you've made something really great, but there's a reason why it's not resonating the way some previous work did. But it's not that easy to just replicate. Some people think, "Oh, just go do that thing you used to do before." But it just doesn't work like that. It's a lot more mysterious or slippery.

Anytime something becomes a success in this way you always get imitators. I'm an imitator of the guys I love. I imitate people like Frank Miller, who is a huge inspiration to me.

I don't think there's anything really wrong with influence because I think that one can use another man's art as material either literally or just implying that they're doing that, without it representing a lack of a point of view.

I don't believe in originality in art. I think we exist on this earth to inspire each other, through our actions, through our deeds, and through who we are. We're always borrowing.

Creativity allows people to be effective.

It's a kind of honour when I see how many people are imitating the style of how I make films.

We artists can only go so far as the people can follow us. We are not alone, we are part of the system. We can take risks, but if you want to go to the peak of your consciousness, you may very well find yourself alone. Even if you know how to translate what you see, maybe only ten people will be able to understand what you tell. But, if you have faith in your vision, and retell it again and again, you will start noticing that, after a time, more people will begin to catch up with you.

I've never modeled myself on anybody, but there are a lot of people whose work I really admire and attitudes I certainly subscribe to.

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.

There are so many people I look up to and I try to watch some sort of video or interview every day, with an artist who does inspire me.

A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.

You know, artists are influenced by other artists. We're all deeply influenced by what's around us; we don't make anything cold. Sometimes we think that we do. But within that, the most important part is that even though we're influenced, what are the levels of invention that we carry forth even as we've been influenced by something that's come before?

If you think a man draws the type of hands that you want to draw, steal ‘em. Take those hands.

The beauty of ideas is that they are like waves in the ocean and they connect with things that came before them, and I think it is very important to embrace things that interest you and influence you, and incorporate them into what you do, as all artists have always done. The ones that say they don’t, are lying. Or are afraid that their work won’t be seen as being original, somehow.

Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you're doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.