Hunter S. Thompson Quotes

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.

I often plagiarize from myself. I like to think of this as ecological journalism: I recycle.

Self-plagiarism is style.

Mr. Fitzgerald, I believe that is how he spells his name, seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.

If you can't plagiarise yourself, who can you plagiarise?

We prefer to think that the absence of inverted commas guarantees the originality of a thought, whereas it may be merely that the utterer has forgotten its source.

The human plagiarism which is most difficult to avoid, for individuals... is the plagiarism of ourselves.

You may imitate, but never counterfeit.

If you must write prose or poems, the words you use should be your own. Don't plagiarize or take 'on loan'. There's always someone, somewhere, with a big nose, who knows, who'll trip you up and laugh when you fall.

Most authors steal their works, or buy.

Don't take what someone else has made sure of and pretend it's you yourself that have made sure of it till it's yours absolutely by conviction. It's stealing to take it and hypocrisy and you'll fall into a hole.

Imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery - it's plagiarism.

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

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

Existing is plagiarism.

Bad writers are those who try to express their own feeble ideas in the language of good ones.

Am I allowed to ask my book / whether it's true I wrote it?

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.

Originality, I fear, is too often only undetected and frequently unconscious plagiarism.

If Shakespeare had lived in our age, he would have been sued for writing Romeo And Juliet, because as everybody knows, he plagiarized that from an Italian play.

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

We are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.

Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; there are many books that owe their success to two things; good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them

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

I hate it when people just downright copy. I hate it.