What is the meaning of this quote Imitation is suicide?

Imitating someone or someone's ideas, thoughts, actions, or creations may seem clever (at best), but at it's worst does not show your own creativity. The 'suicide' aspect means that you are not only 'killing' your own creativity when you imitate someone, you are also lowering other people's opinion about your creativity.

As an example, we all hear about "knock offs". A famous designer creates a product, then some other entity tries to copy it. The copy may look good, but it is not the designer's product. People view the knock off as a poor attempt to cash in on someone else's good idea, and view people negatively who try to 'steal' the original idea. Imitation is suicide, not clever or the easy way to live your life.