Ned Rorem Quotes

I would never finish a painting if I didn't have a deadline.

I like being in focus, in the moment, changing and adapting and creating and advancing a scene.

If you're waiting for the perfect moment, you'll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There's nothing foolproof.

Sometimes, if I allow time to be creative, it doesn't show up.

I used to do three or four songs a day, just write them - boom, boom, boom, and done - because of how spontaneous I was.

It's hard to tell if I've had writer's block because it seems to me that it's when nothing comes, but, you know, every day you stare at that computer screen, and I think, 'It's never going to happen today. How can I write three pages?' And the hours pass, and they haven't shown up, and then at the very end it always happens, so it's willpower.

There is a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like a part of the act.

Composition is selective improvisation.

Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.

I love the joy in the improvisational creative process.

Writer's block? Don't worry about it. Either it goes away or you die.

The composer makes plans, music laughs.

I don't compose. I assemble materials.

When I stand before a canvas, I never know what I'll do, and I am the first one surprised at what comes out.

Starting is hard so I really need to give myself permission to do a bad job. I always give myself leave to write total nonsense for as long as I need to release the pressure, because it's really hard to start if you feel like that first sentence you write has to actually mean something.

I will probably write an hour a day and spend eight hours a day biting my knuckle and worrying about not writing.

For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did. And I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I'm not sure where I'm going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn't do it.

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all.

I should be concentrating on writing pages.

Painting, I think it's like jazz.

Art is doing. Art deals directly with life.

My son - and what's a song? A thing begot within a pair of minutes, thereabout, a lump bred up in darkness.

I'm a believer that you shouldn't really talk about the drawing until you're done with the drawing.

You don't have to have a great art idea - just get to work and something will happen. So that's pretty much my modus operandi and pretty much my principal position, such as it is.

My paintings and comedy have a lot in common. They are both improvisations based on observation.