Keith Johnstone Quotes

#1. In a scene [where the improvisers must interact] without the letter S, the audience is waiting for you to lose - so they can laugh at you. Don't try to win.

Keith Johnstone

#2. Laughter is a whip that keeps us in line. It's horrible to be laughed at against your will. Either you suppress unwelcome laughter or you start controlling it.

Keith Johnstone

#3. Those who say yes are rewarded by the adventures they have.

Keith Johnstone

#4. An artist who is inspired is being obvious. He's not making any decisions, he's not weighing one idea against another. He's accepting his first thoughts.

Keith Johnstone

#5. My feeling is that a good teacher can get results using any method, and that a bad teacher can wreck any method.

Keith Johnstone

#6. Don't come on to be funny - come on to solve problems.

Keith Johnstone

#7. Good improvisers seem telepathic; everything looks pre-arranged, This is because they accept all offers made - which is something no 'normal' person would do.

Keith Johnstone

#8. None of us really grow up. All we ever do is learn how to behave in public.

Keith Johnstone

#9. In a normal education everything is designed to suppress spontaneity, but I wanted to develop it.

Keith Johnstone

#10. Suppose Mozart had tried to be original? It would have been like a man at the North Pole trying to walk north, and this is true of all of the rest of us. Striving after originality takes you far away from your true self, and makes your work mediocre.

Keith Johnstone

#11. Many teachers think of children as immature adults. It might lead to better and more 'respectful' teaching, if we thought of adults as atrophied children.

Keith Johnstone

#12. What a person is afraid to do, he does while possessed.

Keith Johnstone

#13. If you believe you're good already, you don't need to do extra stuff to impress us. Your best work comes when you're absorbed; because then your ego is away.

Keith Johnstone

#14. There are people who prefer to say 'yes' and there are people who prefer to say 'no'. Those who say 'yes' are rewarded by the adventures they have. Those who say 'no' are rewarded by the safety they attain.

Keith Johnstone

#15. I don't even think you should tell the audience you're improvising. It's like an apology in case it's bad : 'we're just making it up' If the improv isn't better than the rehearsed stuff, then you should just rehearse it.

Keith Johnstone

#16. Enjoy things even when you're screwing up.

Keith Johnstone

#17. I think my brain is much more intelligent than I am ... so I tend to trust it.

Keith Johnstone

#18. If it weren't for fear, I wouldn't have to teach you a damn thing

Keith Johnstone

#19. The improviser has to understand that his first skill lies in releasing his partner's imagination.

Keith Johnstone

#20. The best laughs are on the recognition of truth.

Keith Johnstone

#21. If you have a good idea, open your mouth and say something else.

Keith Johnstone

#22. Good impro can make you laugh, we love it, but soon the content is forgotten. Good scenes from The Life Game stay with you always. They haunt you.

Keith Johnstone

#23. Every time you go the way the audience expects, they'll think you're original. People laugh with pleasure at the obvious.

Keith Johnstone

#24. My feeling is that sanity is actually a pretence, a way we learn to behave. We keep this pretence up because we don't want to be rejected by other people - and being classified insane is to be shut out of the group in a very complete way.

Keith Johnstone

#25. The mime must first of all be aware of this boundless contact with things. There is no insulating layer of air between the man and the outside world. Any man who moves causes ripples in the ambient word in the same way a fish does when it moves in the water.

Keith Johnstone