Improvising Quotes

• And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

  Sylvia Plath

  Life, Sad, Writing

  Sylvia Plath (2013). “The Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.85, Anchor

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• The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

  Sylvia Plath

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  Sylvia Plath (2007). “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.545, Anchor

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• Life is a lot like jazz. It's best when you improvise.

  George Gershwin

  Music, Jazz Hands, Cool Jazz

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

  Charles Darwin

  Teamwork, Creativity, Knowledge

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.23, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• I love being onstage. I love the relationship with the audience. I love the letting go, the sense of discovery, the improvising.

  Stephen Colbert

  Letting Go, Love Is, Discovery

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• I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti

  Thomas Harris

  Movie, Nice, Great Year

  "The Silence of the Lambs". www.imdb.com. 1991.

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• You're gonna need a bigger boat.

  Peter Benchley

  Inspirational, Movie, Radio News

  "Fictional character: Chief Martin Brody". "Jaws", www.imdb.com. June 20, 1975.

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• I look at improvising as a prolonged game of chess. There's an opening gambit with your pawn in a complex game I have with one character, and lots of side games with other characters, and another game with myself - and in each game you make all these tiny, tiny moves that get you to the endgame.

  Steve Carell

  Moving, Character, Games

  "First Banana". Interview with Tad Friend, www.newyorker.com. July 5, 2010.

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• I think when people talk about improvising it turns into this silly thing like, "Oh there's like a hula hoop there and I'm like 'Oh what's going on here? Is this a really big ring?'"

  Aziz Ansari

  Silly, Thinking, People

  "Aziz Ansari and Dilshad Vadsaria On Set Interview 30 Minutes or Less". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. May 10, 2011.

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• Yeah, improvising only really works 100% when you're with somebody.

  Bill Hader

  Yeah

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• The challenge is, well, there's a huge challenge, which is when you're improvising, you're meant to sort of clear your mind completely, just be open and funny, and paying, you know, paying attention.

  Brian Henson

  Challenges, Mind, Attention

  Source: bigthink.com

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• If they think they are doing something new, they ought to do what I do every day - spend at least two hours every day listening to Johann Sebastian Bach and, man, it's all there. If they want to improvise around a theme,which is the essence of jazz, they should learn from the master. He never wastes a note, and he knows where every note is going and when to bring it back. Some of these cats go way out and forget where they began or what they started to do. Bach will clear it up for them.

  Coleman Hawkins

  Music, Learning, Cat

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• 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

  Fun, Way, Conflict

  "Ed Helms Talks THE HANGOVER 3, JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME, and THE OFFICE". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. February 7, 2012.

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• I think jazz is a beautiful, democratic music. It encourages musicians with very strong, and many times, very different points of view to work together as a team while, at the same time, giving them the space to express their individuality. It's a very important art form and can be used as a model for different cultures to work together.

  Marcus Miller

  Music, Beautiful, Teamwork

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I don't have a fear factor. Well, not much of one. And I'm willing to risk quite a lot - as a comedian, you're always risking a lot. You're risking failure, especially if you're improvising and going on TV shows trying to make comedy out of thin air. That is quite a risky business.

  David Walliams

  Air, Tv Shows, Risk

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• There are certain actors who are very good at improvising, like Dustin Hoffman and Glenda Jackson.

  John Schlesinger

  Actors, Certain, Very Good

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• Jazz music should be inclusive. Smooth jazz to me rules out a certain kind of drama and a certain tension that I think all music needs. Especially jazz music, since improvising is one of the cornerstones of what jazz is. And when you smooth it out, you take all the drama out of it.

  David Sanborn

  Drama, Thinking, Smooth Jazz

  "Once-stricken saxman: Music 'gave me my life'". Interview with Shanon Cook, www.cnn.com. August 15, 2008.

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• I know there are some actors who are just brilliant at improvising and brilliant at just being in the moment and doing it there and then. I'm not one of those actors.

  Ioan Gruffudd

  Actors, Just Being, Brilliant

  "Ioan Gruffudd - Exclusive Collider Interview". Interview with Steve "Frosty" Weintraub, collider.com. November 13, 2007.

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• You will find hardly any improvising on camera anywhere in my films. It's very structured, but it's all worked out from elaborate improvisations over a long period, as you know.

  Mike Leigh

  Long, Cameras, Film

  "Lynne: People quote your films at parties. Mike: Those are lousy parties". Interview with Lynne Ramsay, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2005.

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• My younger brother and I have been writing together, mainly for fun, for years, but we've been improvising together since we were kids. Literally.

  Ty Burrell

  Brother, Fun, Writing

  Interview with Steve Heisler, www.avclub.com. November 18, 2009.

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• I haven't written a novel or something that long, because I really am improvising all along and the story is growing new limbs to do what it needs to do. So there's very little planning. There's a little planning where I say, "Well, it looks like I'm going in this direction, ok, good." But there's very little forethought or intellectual justification: "Oh, look, I'm putting in a theme park because that represents dystopian America!"

  George Saunders

  America, Long, Intellectual

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Sometimes you have to kind of keep proving that you're improvising. That's the game, or the goal, of long-form TV improv, is that you have to kind of keep reminding and showing people that you're improvising, because they won't believe you really.

  Amy Poehler

  Believe, Games, Long

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Even if you're improvising, the fact that beforehand you know certain things will work helps you make those improvisations successful. It really helps to have a certain amount of knowledge about musical structure.

  John Cale

  Successful, Musical, Facts

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• When you're improvising, it's fun to find something that you can lean on that is similar to your life experience. In my opinion, that's very helpful.

  Mark Duplass

  Fun, Opinion, Helpful

  "Live From Sundance: A GQA with Mark Duplass". Interview with Mickey Rapkin, www.gq.com. January 18, 2012.

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• I enjoy songwriting. It's slow-motion improvising.

  Julian Casablancas

  Slow Motion, Enjoy, Songwriting

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