Love Quote by Charles Kuralt

Kuralt hands you a confession that’s also a defense: yes, he can name the rhythms he’s borrowing, and no, he’s not going to pretend originality is some pristine, self-generated miracle. The key move is that sly qualifier: “not exactly plagiarism.” He knows the accusation, anticipates it, and disarms it by shifting the frame from theft to courtship. “Falling in love” turns imitation into desire, not larceny; it makes craft feel intimate, even vulnerable. For a journalist best known for narrative warmth and ear-for-voice Americana, that’s telling. He’s talking about style the way he talked about people: as something you listen for, absorb, and then carry.

The subtext is a quiet rebuke to the mythology of the lone genius. Good writing, Kuralt implies, is learned the old-fashioned way: by reading closely enough that the music gets under your skin. “Rhythms” matters here. He’s not claiming other people’s facts or ideas; he’s admitting to mimicking cadence, sentence temperature, the way a paragraph breathes. That’s where influence actually lives, and he’s honest about it.

Contextually, it’s also a newsroom argument. Journalism prizes clarity and speed, yet it’s full of stylists who built their voices by echoing earlier ones until the echo became their own. Kuralt’s line draws the ethical boundary in a human way: imitation as apprenticeship, not appropriation. It’s a reminder that voice isn’t invented so much as earned through attentive, slightly audacious love.