No, because I don't want to hear what's hot and feel I have to copy it. I'll just make up my own thing.
Many novice writers, students in particular, think that writing is little more than copying down their self-talk, the palaver of the voices they hear in their heads. Of course, self-talk is thinking, and writing begins with thinking.
No, sir, I'm not saying that charming, witty and warm copy won't sell. I'm just saying I've seen thousands of charming, witty campaigns that didn't sell.
How is your book doing?" or "How many copies have you sold?" are the questions for a salesman. To a writer, you better ask "What did you write today?".
I feel responsible to make something original as a Japanese artist. There are lots of singers and guitarists, but I feel that on stage it's meaningless to copy something someone has done before.
When a company identifies how to integrate the processes needed to give the consumer a sense of job completion, it can blow away the competition. A product is easy to copy, but experiences are very hard to replicate.
I've reread 'The Secret Garden' every year as an adult. I have a battered copy on my bookshelf - it's really quite a mess! The experience of reading the novel keeps deepening for me.
I think it's wonderful that people in pickup trucks are buying two flats of dog food and a copy of 'Bastard.' I want my view of the world to be right up there next to gallon boxes of Tide.
When a dish really hits a nerve with the American palate, it can really take off across the entire country, facilitated by food vendors' freedom to copy good ideas.
I know acts and I'm not going to name names but these people sold ten million copies the first time and the second album sells three million and it's considered a failure and they're dropped and that's really a shame.
But thankfully, my first album, 'Wide Screen,' was sort of a critics' darling - everyone raved about it, but no one bought it. They only manufactured 10,000 copies; I wasn't even in the running for failure!
I'm not big on reading business books. I get copies of all of them, because people want me to put a comment on the jacket. Every once in a while, I'll get interested and read one all the way through.
At home I have a copy of the April 21, 1986, issue of 'Sports Illustrated.' I'm on the cover with the blurb, 'Can Lou Do It?' I'd just arrived at Notre Dame, and with spring football underway, I was the focal point of that week's coverage.
I talk to bankers, distributors, marketing people. I used to sit at home in my tracksuit bottoms, and the real excitement of my day would be going out to get a copy of 'Private Eye' and a latte.
On two or three book tours, I have visited bookstores in the Mall of America and signed copies of my books and introduced myself to store employees who I hope will sell them.
I'm kind of surprised that so many of those other books were almost exactly like mine. They even follow the form. There were some books that even copied the stamp. It shows so little imagination.
It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.
An Internet meme is a hijacking of the original idea. Instead of mutating by random change and spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, Internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity. There is no attempt at accuracy of copying, as wit...
I put the copy of 'A Christmas Carol' that my grandfather had first read to me 60 years ago on my desk, and I began to write. The result, for better or for worse, is the 'Christmas Spirits.' I plan to read it to my grandson.
Every year, I give my dad an advance copy of my latest book. He reads it over the next several nights and says something incredibly supportive. Then he clears his throat nervously and changes the subject.
As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.
