This book was an incredibly short, fun read. I checked it out from the library, but it’s definitely one that I plan on buying a physical copy of. It is well designed and nice to look at, plus it’s a dense dose of inspiration that can help me out if I’m in a rut.

The main idea of this book is that to do anything original, you need to copy what has come before you. This doesn’t mean plagiarism, it just means that you don’t need to start from scratch, you can, and should, layer you creativity on top of a tried and true foundation that you learn (or steal) from the masters.

You find your own voice by trying (and failing) to copy your hero’s voice.

Here are some of the notes that I took, you’ll notice that quite a few of them are quotes that are from some other source. Honestly, the quotes he curates for this book are just as valuable as his own original content (which sort of proves his point):

• “Art is theft” – Pablo Picasso
• “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything needs to be said again.” – Andre Gide
• “What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.” -William Ralph Inge
• “Nobody is born with a style or a voice. We don’t come out of the womb knowing who we are. In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. We learn by copying.” (pg 33)
• “Start copying what you love. Copy, copy copy, At the end of the copy you will find yourself.” -Yokji Yamamoto
• “Those who don’t want to imitate anything produce nothing.” -Salvador Dali.
• “The computer brings out the perfectionist in us –we start editing ideas before we have them” (pg. 58)
• “If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room (pg. 104)
• “Modern art = ‘I could do that’ + ‘yeah, but you didn’t.'” – Craig Damrauer
• “Amassing a body of work or building a career is a lot about the slow accumulation of little bits of effort over time.” (pg. 127)
• One of my favorite stories in the book was told to illustrate how constraints can help unleash creativity: When Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat his editor was impressed that he had written a book that long with only 236 different words and bet him that he couldn’t write one using less than 50. The result was Green Eggs and Ham, the bestselling children’s book of all time.

I’m not sure if there is an audiobook for this one, but even if there is I would probably recommend getting your hands on the physical copy. This is a great “coffee table” book to put in a public space in your house for curious house guest to peruse. It’s got such a provocative title that people are bound to pick it up to have a look, and chances are a lot of them will ask to borrow it.