Imitations only better the original.
It is impossible to imitate Voltaire without being Voltaire.
My art flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, nobody by petitelieness without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how then can I hope to be popular?
Imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery - it's plagiarism.
Codes are a puzzle. A game, just like any other game.
Borrowed wit is the poorest wit.
It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly.
Thus the brave and aspiring life of one man lights a flame in the minds of others of like faculties and impulse; and where there is equally vigorous effort, like distinction and success will almost surely follow. Thus the chain of example is carried down through time in an endless succession of links--admiration exciting imitation, and perpetuating the true aristocracy of genius.
As an actor, I don't feel like it's necessary to watch a great deal of films. In fact, I think it can lead to imitation and unhealthy competition, which just isn't needed.
When Picasso paints as a cubist, putting one tone next to another, the arrangement of planes is fine and the results very storng. But those who imitate him achieve nothing worthwhile.
As much as I live I shall not imitate them or hate myself for being different to them
When the bad imitate the good, there is no knowing what mischief is intended.
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggar’s dinner, from a hundred charities?
I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices.
Imitation is often a shortcut to a solution. We copy when we lack the inclination, the ability or the time to work out an independent solution. People in a hurry will imitate more readily than people at leisure. Hustling thus tends to produce uniformity. And in the deliberate fusing of individuals into a compact group, incessant action will play a considerable role.
Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.
Charyn, like Nabokov, is that most fiendish sort of writer-so seductive as to beg imitation, so singular as to make imitation impossible.
Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself.
Art does not begin with imitation, but with discipline.