Top 100 Quotes About Improvisation
#1. We heads of state really prefer to have some sort of an agenda before we sit down at the high-stakes table, you know. All bad novelists notwithstanding, surprise and improvisation are not the best basis for successful diplomacy!
David Weber
#2. What an actor says is much, much less important than a life, so that's the great use for improvisation; you go, you find the life and then you add the words.
Giovanni Ribisi
#3. When I first did 'Best in Show,' I had never done any improvisation.
Jim Piddock
#4. Everyone's encouraged to put things in their own words, to discover new things. So there's definitely an element of dynamic improvisation, for sure, which I think gives those scenes some of their energy, some of their electricity.
Steve Zissis
#5. Effortless [performance] and improvisation are two different things. Just because it's improvised doesn't mean it's effortless and just because it's effortless doesn't necessarily mean it's improvised.
Christoph Waltz
#6. Most of my comedy writing happens through improvisation on stage; doing it in the moment.
Marc Maron
#7. To sing a song is like whispering to a child's ear. It is an art heavily relying on improvisation.
Andrea Bocelli
#8. Through its inborn faculty of hearing, poetry seeks the melody of nature amid the noise of the dictionary, then, picking it out like picking out a tune, it gives itself up to improvisation on that theme.
Boris Pasternak
#9. And in improvisation there is one hard and fast rule, and that rule is known as 'Yes And'. The term yes and: to say yes, and not just yes, but to add information. In the adding of information you don't negate the other persons idea - but you build on it.
Maya Rudolph
#10. Improvisation is just writing in front of an audience.
Carl Reiner
#11. As any jazz musician knows, it takes flexibility and adaptability for improvisation to create beauty.
Doc Childre
#12. I allow a lot of room for improvisation and funny stuff. I always feel planned.
Michael Bay
#13. It may seem like improv because it flows quite naturally, and a little bit of leeway for improvisation is good, but you have to be judicious with it. So it's good, but sometimes people deify it. You can't improvise your way out of a paper hat.
Steve Coogan
#14. In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
Miles Davis
#15. With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.
Carrie Brownstein
#16. Volleyball is one of the most interactive games going. It is a game of intuition, imagination, improvisation - but most of all, of reciprocity - of teamwork. There is no way to free-lance in volleyball.
Marv Dunphy
#17. Everything we design and make is an improvisation, a lash-up, something inept and provisional.
David Pye
#19. A lot of improvisation ends up being about just thinking outside of the box in the scene. It's not improvisation as much as it is quickness or making it real.
Jason Sudeikis
#20. There are a lot of visual marks that have to be hit, and lines that need to be said in a right way - so there wasn't really any improvisation on the set when it came to the bulk of the script.
Simon Pegg
#21. If you go back to the roots of jazz, it was all about COLLECTIVE improvisation.
Henry Threadgill
#22. For me, improvisation is about working with a partner. That is much easier to do in the interview, because you have a sounding board.
Stephen Colbert
#23. Improvisation sometimes seemed more like jazz than acting, like verbal jazz, with the actors playing a theme back and forth, and then introducing another theme, incorporating it, somehow trying to work their way all together to a meaning of some kind, or at least a conclusion.
Alan Arkin
#24. Most of my show is just improvisation. It goes with the energy of the crowd.
Freddie Gibbs
#25. Acting is really scary, but it's also challenging, fun, hard work. There's always an element of improvisation with every actor, even when something is really scripted.
Michael Pitt
#26. There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.
Carson McCullers
#27. Ever fresh the broad creation,
A divine improvisation,
From the heart of God proceeds,
A single will, a million deeds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#28. I hated improvisation because in my early days as an actor, improvisation meant somebody had just come down from Oxford and they were doing a play above a pub in Kentish Town, and the biggest ego would win.
Peter Capaldi
#29. As a director and an actor, I encourage improvisation but in character and in the moment of what it is.
Billy Crystal
#30. I've always been interested in shaping music in odd ways, with odd riffs and that's been probably something that I've continued on with my studies with improvisation as I'm working with people.
Roscoe Mitchell
#31. Improvisation is a weird word because we often think it means that you make things up out of whole cloth right there on the spot, and that's rarely the case in acting. You have to know who the character is, what the situation is and what is needed.
Roger Ebert
#32. The only band I was really over-into was Cream. And the only thing I really liked about them was their live stuff 'cause they played two verses, then go off and jam for 20 minutes, come back and do a chorus and end. And I love the live jam stuff, the improvisation.
Eddie Van Halen
#33. Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what's going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.
Stephen Colbert
#34. She likes the frisson of improvisation. Fun cannot be scheduled. Fun simply occurs.
Rumaan Alam
#35. I became immersed in the cult of improvisation. I was like one of those athletes trying to get into the Olympics. It was all about blind focus. I was so sure that I was doing exactly what I'd been put on this earth to do, and I would have done anything to make it onto that stage.
Tina Fey
#36. Successful improvisation is mostly a matter of taking your thoughts out of the equation, because thinking can keep the magic from happening. You have to be open enough to let the magic happen, instead of trying to make it happen because magic is never made.
Jimmy Herring
#37. The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what other people say. It's about what you hear.
Paul Merton
#38. The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.
Jan Garbarek
#39. The main three components are the blues, improvisation - which is some kind of element that people are trying to make it up - and swing, which means even though they're making up music, they're trying to make it up together. It feels great, like you're having a great conversation with somebody.
Wynton Marsalis
#40. Improvisation is a compositional method.
Evan Parker
#41. There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation.
David Antin
#42. Louis Armstrong is the master of the jazz solo. He became the beacon, the light in the tower, that helped the rest of us navigate the tricky waters of jazz improvisation.
Ellis Marsalis Jr.
#43. Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's - the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering - a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages.
Leonard Bernstein
#44. In a one-woman show, there must be compelling material that you adore. In both of these there are conversations with you and another character. My Second City (improvisation) background comes in very handy for accent and body posture.
Valerie Harper
#45. You know what your problem is, Sasha?" Rex said. "You always want to have every little detail worked out in advance. You've got to leave some room for improvisation." "My concern, sir, is that you've given such a wide berth to improvisation that you've left no room for planning." "You
Robert Kroese
#46. Everyone asks me if piano had helped me in football. I guess improvisation and creativity helps on the field, but that's a reach. The two skills are just so different. And, by the way, I get more nervous playing piano.
Joey Harrington
#47. My game is based on improvisation. Often, a forward does not have the time to think too much. You have a second, rarely more, to decide whether to dribble, shoot or pass to the right or left. It is instinct that gives the orders.
Ronaldinho
#48. What basketball expresses is what jazz expresses. Certain cultural predispositions to make art. All African-American art has a substratum, or baseline, of improvisation and spontaneity. You find that in both basketball and jazz.
John Edgar Wideman
#49. As I get older, I'm trying to accept improvisation into my day-to-day living.
Colin Mochrie
#50. As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.
Mose Allison
#51. Improvisation is the expression of the accumulated yearnings, dreams, and wisdom of the soul.
Yehudi Menuhin
#52. Baseball players practice, runners practice, so how can you practice being funny? You get up onstage. You train as an improviser, playing make-believe, using the vernacular of improvisation, saying 'yes and' to other people's ideas, making statements.
Ali Farahnakian
#53. You are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what's going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say 'yes.' And if you're lucky, you'll find people who will say 'yes' back.
Stephen Colbert
#54. To create characters, one must build background. And one of the tools we use is improvisation.
Harvey Keitel
#55. I love improvisation. It's quite exciting.
Tcheky Karyo
#56. When I think back now to the recording sessions, there is more improvisation than one hears. It's an ideal combination of arrangements and improvisation. Only a few people are able to listen and say what is composed and what is improvised. It's a unit.
Eberhard Weber
#57. The great thing about improvisation is that it allows us to establish an uncensored form of theater. Freedom of speech is absolutely inherent to artistic expression.
Lucien Bourjeily
#58. You had to account for every move, arrival or exit. In the world there was a conspiracy against improvisation. It was only permitted in jazz.
Anais Nin
#59. Improvisation is risky. I like that. Another practical reason for that is that you have to go out and play every day on a tour. I couldn't do it if I thought I was going to do the same songs every day in the same order, like a full-on robot.
Jamie Lidell
#60. I'm not a standup. I didn't start off as a writer, I learned to write through improvisation, and so that's the part of the show that can most surprise me. The written part of the show, I know I can get wrong. You can't really get the interview "wrong."
Stephen Colbert
#61. Improvisation, for me, is when the cameras start rolling, we don't know where we're going and let's just waste people's time and money.
Jason Bateman
#62. For me anyway, until I was exposed to doing improvisation and walking onto a stage without any script, I would have never felt comfortable enough to walk into a room with someone like Larry David and audition.
Cheryl Hines
#63. Bob Dylan's one of the greatest blues singers of the western world; ancient art, on-the-spot improvisation, mind quickness, endless variation, classical formulae, prophetic vision, mighty wind-horse.
Allen Ginsberg
#64. Improvisation is about finding the best joke or the silliest way to get something across. Improvising conflict is always fun because you can just go for it.
Ed Helms
#65. Improvisation is the art of becoming sound. It is the only art in which a human being can and must become the music he or she is making. Improvisation is the only musical art which predicated entirely on human trust and love.
Alvin Curran
#66. Improvisation helps because you get what's on the page and you make it a little more palatable to your tongue. And that's the beauty of creating and being spontaneous. That's the way I love to work.
Taraji P. Henson
#67. People are tired of constant movement, improvisation, and wild scrambling when plans fail.
Francois Hollande
#68. While other dot-coms merged or perished, Amazon survived through a combination of conviction, improvisation, and luck.
Brad Stone
#69. I think I'm going to venture into the futuristic, semi sci-fi love story land, but still in my style of improvisation.
Drake Doremus
#70. A disgruntled reflection on my own life as a sort of desperate improvisation in which I was constantly trying to make something coherent from conflicting elements to fit rapidly changing settings.
Mary Catherine Bateson
#71. I'm going to break one of the rules of the trade here. I'm going to tell you some of the secrets of improvisation. Just remember - it's always a good idea to follow the directions exactly the first time you try a recipe. But from then on, you're on your own.
James Beard
#73. The way I write is, I listen to things in my head, and then I copy them down. I memorize conversations and things like that; I seem to be able to do that pretty well. I suppose in that respect there's some improvisation, although I work over the stuff after I've got it down on paper.
Harvey Pekar
#74. There are wonderful things in Jazz, the improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.
Henri Matisse
#75. Within the context of Western music, jazz has always contained certain radical or revolutionary aspects. These are: improvisation, collective composition and individuality or the personal sound (based on amazing variations in sonority, timbre and pitch).
Michael Snow
#76. Perfect retention. I don't think I could do that-I've never disciplined myself to do it. I suppose a lot of it is a question of discipline. Which improvisation is not.
George Shearing
#77. It ain't about if he knocks a guy out. It's about how he knocks a guy out. It's the style, the improvisation.
Don King
#78. When you planned rough, you allowed room for improvisation.
Stephen King
#79. In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.
Wynton Marsalis
#80. Improvisation and new learning are not private processes; they are shared with others at every age. We are called to join in a dance whose steps must be learned along the way, so it is important to attend and respond. Even in uncertainty, we are responsible for our steps.
Mary Catherine Bateson
#81. John [Cassavetes] loved actors. He gave them a lot of freedom. So if something came up that a certain actor just felt at the moment and said - that kind of improvisation he would accept. He gave very little direction.
Gena Rowlands
#83. I approach music and acting the same way, through spontaneous improvisation. I never really try to rehearse anything, do it over and over, except when we're inside a take.
Matt Schulze
#84. I think improvisation is a technique and a tool. I think that even the best of them fail most of the time, and in the end, the audience is not interested in how you got there but in what you're saying. The more clearly and concisely and artistically you say it, the more effective it is.
Bernard Sahlins
#85. Anything I do, I learn about first. I am not in favour of improvisation; I believe in work and in learning
Ferreira Gullar
#86. My advice to you: live in the moment. Stay fluid and roll with those changes. Life is just a big extended improvisation. Embrace the ever changing, ever evolving world with the best rule I've ever found. Say 'YES AND.
Jane Lynch
#87. The score must govern the music. It must have authority, and not merely be an arbitrary jumping-off point for improvisation.
Cornelius Cardew
#88. Come, come," the Baron said. "We don't have much time and pain is quick. Please don't bring it to this, my dear Duke." The Baron looked up at Piter who stood at Leto's shoulder. "Piter doesn't have all his tools here, but I'm sure he could improvise."
"Improvisation is sometimes the best, Baron.
Frank Herbert
#89. Maybe being a good parent is about improvisation and spontaneity. Maybe it's about genuinely being with your kid. Sometimes though, it is also about being able to catch sick in yours hands.
Keith Stuart
#90. In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material.
Mike Figgis
#91. Much of what happens in Love Always is really from overheard conversations in the Russian Tea Room. It's an improvisation of the way certain Hollywood agents think and talk to each other.
Ann Beattie
#92. Most of my favourite moments in film have been when I've had an opportunity to say something from scratch, something original, whether I jotted down a few lines or it came out in improvisation.
Nicolas Cage
#93. And more than anything, I like the improvisation of jazz. That's the same thing with DJ-ing. There's so much improvisation you can do with cuttin' and scratchin' that's reminiscent of jazz music, because it's all about how you feel. You're capturing a vibe and just going with it.
DJ Jazzy Jeff
#94. When you start to kind of immerse yourself in that improvisation culture, you gotta be comfortable enough with your instrument to throw yourself into a really potentially dangerous situation.
Mike Patton
#95. You don't want to OD on improvisation.
Patti Smith
#96. They were looking for actors - real actors - who could play instruments. There was a lot of improvisation and scene work involved in addition to the music. The auditions went on for a long time.
Micky Dolenz
#97. Legislation is a matter of more or less intelligent improvisation aiming at palliating conditions by means of patchwork policies.
John Dewey
#98. Art originates in play - in improvisation, experiment, and fantasy; it remains forever, in its deepest instincts, playful and spontaneous, an exercise of the imagination analogous to the exercising of the physical body to no purpose other than ecstatic release.
Joyce Carol Oates
#99. With human beings it could be argued that all music-making is, in essence, grounded in improvisation.
John Burnside
#100. As you know from reading many of these Negro writers, we don't deal too much with the discussion of democracy and what it means and how improvisation fits in all that.
Stanley Crouch
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