I Like a Good Quote

Well the way I see it you don't really create, it's more like you pick apart stuff and then you put them together to make new stuff. To me that is what "stealing" is, because if you say, for example, imitate or copy a quote you just use the same thing again but if you steal it you pick it apart and then you look at the essence of the quote as you interpreted it and maybe you ask yourself, how would I say this? Or you might not remember it very clearly word by word but you remember the meaning and the ring to it and since you are too lazy to google it you just give it your best shot and hope noone will notice :P And then you rewrite a quote with similar meaning but with your own words, effectively stealing it and making it your own.

Also you might decide to "create" a joke, you know what you think is funny so you play around with words until they are funny, in a way all the jokes you ever heard and all of the experiences you had that were funny are picked apart in your head and then you give it a good shake and sample the results until something is satisfying.

I think this is how we create and I also think this is how we learn. But when we learn I think we pick our brains for parts that we can use together to fit what we are observing - it's how we make concepts out of memes (the meme as the most reduced part of a concept). This might be why language and experience are both so important when it comes to learning new things.