"Art is theft”) and Igor Stravinsky (“Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal”), I’ve always stolen from the people I admire – not plagiarized, mind you, but stolen bits of ideas and stylistic influences. If you steal widely enough, after all, your models are inevitably changed and the result is in the end completely yours. Kleon cites André Gide to this point, in a quotation I love: “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again."

You may also like:

• 

  Ann Hood
  Novelist

• 

  Chase Jarvis
  Photographer

• 

  Chris Ware
  Artist

• 

  Joan Didion
  Author

• 

  Lynda Barry
  Cartoonist

• 

  Scott Belsky
  Author

• 

  Seth Godin
  Author

• 

  Sophia Amoruso
  

• 

  Steven Pressfield
  Author