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Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.
Aaron Sorkin
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Writers build upon the ideas of others, but exceptional writers take inspiration to create something entirely their own.

This quote emphasizes the distinction between good writers and great writers in the realm of creativity. It suggests that good writers may rework existing ideas, while great writers fully integrate and transform those ideas into something new and impactful, thus highlighting the importance of originality and boldness in artistic expression.

Themes

WritingCreativityInspirationArtistryOriginality

In practice

Example use cases

In a writing workshop, discussing the blending of various influences in a personal narrative.

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Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks.
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Quote by Aaron Sorkin | QuoteProject