John Tiffany Quotes

If you're not allowed to experiment anymore for fear of being considered self-indulgent or pretentious or what have you, then everyone's going to just stick to the rules - there's not going to be any additional ideas.

You have to learn the rules to be able to know how to break them.

When I've tried to reinvent the wheel, I get bashed for not doing the familiar things.

You know that I'm always a proponent of doing things differently.

Sometimes, if you really want to try something original, you step a little too far out of bounds. I mean, there's a market force that kind of unconsciously keeps you in line a little bit.

To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.

Artists rarely do the same thing over and over again. Art is about the new, doing things in a new way.

When you make new musicals, you have the great freedom and the great burden that it can be changed.

I really don't find revivals very interesting because I like new work a lot. I feel like if you're going to pay me, then let me do what I do and let me try to solve some problems. Let me try to make something fly. Why would I do something that everybody has already done the hard work on? But that's me. Tons of people do revivals really well.

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

You've got to know the rules to break them.

I try to please people, to give them a good time, but I refuse to make my act conform to traditional show-biz standards of entertainment. There's a little voice that says, 'Oh, no, you can't do that, that's breaking all the rules.' That's the voice of show business. Then this other little voice says, 'Try it.' And most of the time, when the voice comes on and says, 'No,' that's the time it works.

Learn all the rules... then break them.

It's not set in stone. I like to keep it rolling and changing, and so I am like, "Great, I get to remake my song."

We get used to a certain kind of colour of form or format, and it's acceptable. And to puncture that is sticking your neck out a bit. And then pretty soon, that's very acceptable.

I want to change and try new ideas - allowing your sonic identity to evolve in your music and not being afraid of that. You see musicians hit upon something that works, and then go, "Let's keep doing that for 10 years." And that idea kind of terrifies me a little bit. It becomes like a day job then.

I tend to just do whatever I want on an album and try to make it work. I'm just adventurous. It's most exciting to be at the edge of your abilities. I want to see how far I can push things.

Improvising things is always changing. A lot of momentum.

I think anytime you can do something you haven't seen or done in a film before, it's always a great day as an actor.

I think music needs danger; it needs risk.

The best thing for an actor is to try it his way. The way they do it may not work, but it may inspire me to try something else.

You must be in tune with the times and prepared to break with tradition.

If you do the same thing every night, that's the death of music.

Every time, I try to make something different.

I always believe in doing new things and using new materials that I have never used or that I didn't like for a long time.