Quotes About Imitation

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

What one fool can do, another can.

The photographic image is the object itself, the object freed from the conditions of time and space that govern it. No matter how fuzzy, distorted, or discolored, no matter how lacking in documentary value the image may be, it shares, by virtue of the very process of its becoming, the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model.

But, of course, of course, I imitated everyone! Except myself. -- Pablo Picasso

I'm flattered by the imitators, embarrassed, thoroughly confused. I can't imagine all these people trying to be like Andre Agassi, since I don't want to be Andre Agassi.

I like to mimic accents. I don't even know if that's a talent. That's just a weird thing that I do.

A really good impressionist, even if they don't look at all like the person they're impersonating, it's a weird thing where they start to look like that person. It's kind of odd.

On 'MADtv,' I discovered I could do Billy Crystal. 'Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 68th Annual Academy Awards!' Surprisingly, there's more call for that one than you'd think.

I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'

The present aristocracy of western culture, at the moment when it most clearly dominates the world, is being imitated rapidly and successfully in every eastern country.

Poetry had great powers over me from my childhood, and today the poems live in my memory which I read at the age of 7 or 8 years and which drove me to desperate attempts at imitation.

I do sometimes find it interesting when I look at a lot of the pranks that are out there, and I see kids doing the exact things that I did in the '90s. Like, I would go out on the street on crutches and fall down, and people would help me. Or I would paint my parents' house plaid; I've seen that replicated.

Habits are learned. And children learn their habits by watching what we do, not by listening to what we say. So we have to stop talking and teaching and preaching and just go do.

It was fun playing a pregnant woman. I have seen my cousins and friends go through the beautiful journey of being a mother and I tried to copy them.

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.

When I was a kid, I used to look in the mirror and pretend I was Elvis.

There are artists in Belgium who try to imitate American artists. But it's like, if you're Belgian pretending to be American, you won't be better than the American because you aren't American. You have to do your own stuff.

I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin' like myself.

You know, every country needs another country to mock, and Australians seem to be pretty good at impersonating American people. Maybe it's because all the movies and music and TV you see there is from America, so we just have the knack for it.

Fred Armisen does a pretty good me.

There are people who do De Niro and Walken impersonations.

I watched Magic Johnson on tape. I didn't have a chance to watch him live. I remember I was 12 or 13, watching games, going to the gym and trying to mimic what they do. Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, all those guys.