Jack White Quotes

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

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

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

We call ourselves creators and we just copy.

I realized that I could try to sound like Waylon Jennings, or I could try to be like Waylon Jennings... but it's impossible to do both.

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.

There were times in my career when I would try to write songs like Bob Dylan... Artists get hooked up in that. To be a follower, you lose.

You can't make experimental work by copying past work.

Generally what I produce is new. Of course, they are often variations on the same subject.

In the creative industries, there are few things more exciting than a zinger - a thought, idea, line, plot device - anything really, that just totally works in a fundamentally new and fresh way. It's like a uniquely lovely melody or a new taste idea in cooking. Something special, something new, something wonderful. They're also very rare.

A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.

What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.

If it feels like we're re-creating something rather than creating something, we don't do it.

Of course you can't do anything completely original.

You have to be as original as possible. It's a tough thing to come up with something totally original.

If your entire conception of what's possible in fantasy only comes from other fantasy books, you're going to go on to create a copy of a copy of a copy. There's nothing original there, nothing dynamic. Which is fine if that's your goal, but I've always wanted to do something no one else was doing before.

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

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

Copying isn’t particularly creative work. Being inspired by someone else’s idea to produce something new and different IS creative work.

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

You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling.

Posterity weaves no garlands for imitators.

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that.

Nobody really invents anything that hasn't been done before.