Pat Metheny Quotes

Many more people saw me on TV than will ever get to see me on stage, but I do love being in the same room as the people I'm telling the story to.

There's nothing like spending an evening with an audience every night.

I like working on stage because there's something very immediate about it, that interaction with an audience where you immediately hear their reaction, or feel them, whether they're with you.

I've really grown to love film, but I think occasionally you need to get up on a stage and see what's going on.

There's something about being in front of a live audience that's fun. It's a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can't get it anywhere else. And I've been doing it since I was 23, so it's part of my being - it's part of my fabric as a person.

Doing my Broadway show '700 Sundays' reminded me how much I love working in front of an audience.

There's no such thing as standing still and just singing a song. I love jumping into the crowd. I love to dance.

I like entertaining people. I like being on stage. I like being in the life. This is what I do. This is the only thing I know how to do besides rob people and fight. Even when I was robbing people, I was entertaining them. But that's just what I love doing.

When you try to go back and watch improv on tape, it almost never feels as good as it did when a crowd was laughing at it.

The first job I ever did in the theatre, I was supposed to be a genius piano player. I couldn't play the piano, but you just sit there at a piano like you're playing, and suddenly all this amazing music comes out and the audience believes you can do it. It's the same with computers. I love scenes where there are people yanking at monitors, "yes I'll put you through now," and you know they're just doing that. But you can look brilliant at all this technology. I love it.

When I write I consider it a rhyme. In the studio I consider it laying down vocals. Onstage, I'm entertaining; I don't even think about it.

People call me a theater actor, but I'm just an actor. But I tell my friends all the time - especially a lot that do theater and haven't done a lot of TV/film - that you have so much more control over your work onstage. When you go onstage, you can really see the difference between people who can really do it, and people who are just kind of pretending to do it. There is no editor, there's nothing that's going to stop the actor from showing what they can do unless it's not a well-written role.

I like the part where you walk up on the stage and you're up there for the show. I like that part.

You would never do stand-up without an audience. I mean, no one would even consider it. It's like they're the instrument you're playing.

Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage.

I get to do stand-up every single day. I love that live energy exchange between the audience and myself, and to get to say the things I want to say and comment on.

My preference is live performance, because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that.

I couldn't worry about whether I'm gonna make it onstage or not. You can't. You just gotta do it. And if you do, you do, and if you don't, you don't, and then something else happens. That's the point of the live performance.

There's just something about getting up, putting it out there, and getting this exchange of energy. Whether your audience is a camera lens, or live theater, or whatever it is, just putting that out there and getting it back is just an honor.

When you're performing, you're creating a moment.

Onstage, of course, you have the luxury of rehearsal and discovery and time and comfort, which then turns into terror when you actually have to put it in front of people.

I think I always enjoyed the energy of a crowd, of being onstage. It started when I was even younger doing public speaking at school and just kept going from there.

I think some musicians can almost forget that the stage is something to do something on, even if that thing is standing still.

I like doing live things and plays. You can perfect the laugh or extend the laugh, you can get them on a roll. Versus improv, which I hate. Put it all together. They're more vignettes. Improv makes me slightly anxious because I feel for them.

We are reaching the stage where the problems we must solve are going to become insoluble without computers. I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them.