Jacques Barzun Quotes

Don't be too precious or attached to anything you write. Let things be malleable. For sketch writers, remember they're called sketches for a reason. They're not called oil paintings. Some of them are going to stink. You have to let them stink.

Often, the fact that I haven't done something as a writer is all the reason I need to try it.

The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.

You have to have an unlimited imagination, an unlimited restraint on your inhibition when you're working. You have to even dare to fail, even in a scene, whatever it is.

I like to experiment, and as an actress, I always thought it's good to be open about a lot of things.

I hate rules. I hate 'This is the way things are done'. I hate a lack of reinvention. I hate theatre as an archeological exercise. Theatre needs to be urgent.

I can try new genres because I know there are fans who will always be there to support what I would like to pursue.

We do things differently. You don't have to worry about being part of a particular genre. You just go for it.

I was the first records editor at Rolling Stone, and there were no rules. There was nothing to fall back on as to how do you write about this kind of music, so people were trying absolutely everything with a great sense of freedom and experimentation and success and failure, and a feeling of, “My God, people are actually paying attention to this. Let’s pretend they aren’t because we don’t want to be intimidated by what somebody might think of what we’re saying.

It's fun to do something different. And there are things you can do in a small palate that you can't necessarily do in a larger role. You can go a little further and do things you could never pull off for any length of time, but you can do for the short run.

I want to do weird things and big budget things and no budget things. I don't have a five-year plan.

The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.

Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant -you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place. Trust your demon.

Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.

That's really what keeps me playing live - appreciation. And I guess I've made a lot of wiggle room for myself to try different things and discover what I'm doing, and the audience accepts it.

We live in a world where art is always looked upon as the perfect medium. We live in a society where we can alter our body parts, we can act in the most perfect or right way. A lot of that is dangerous because, especially in the world of art, the chief enemy of creativity is being safe. If you're safe, you can't fall and hurt yourself. The older you are, the further down the crash is going to be. But if it works out, the higher the high.

I really am passionate about making low-budget movies. You can try new stuff and unusual stuff, and you can break the rules.

While you're being creative, nothing is wrong. There's no such thing as a mistake, and any drivel may lead to the breakthrough.

For me, changing the sound and listening to new music - that's just so fun. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You're never going to please everybody. I feel that at the end of the day, I should make what I want to make since somebody is going to hate it and somebody is going to love it too. I can't control that.

If you’re going to create, create a lot. Creativity is not like playing the slot machines, where failure to win means you go home broke. With creativity, if you don’t win, you’re usually no worse off than if you hadn’t played.

I'd say, go ahead, shoot your shot. More power to ya if you can come up with a different angle on the character.

Consider everything an experiment.

To make something really great and different and interesting means taking risks and following these ideas in your head.

When I start to write a song, I initially fall into patterns and creative habits that are familiar, and because they're familiar, they sound convincing. It's important for me to not pursue those ideas, because I've already done them, but to find ideas that are different and feel strange to write and disconcerting to write.

Over the years, I discovered over and over again that once you lose control, you have a chance of getting good at it. And once you're controlling the work, it's not going to be very good, or it won't be as good as it should be.