Paul S. Kemp Quotes

The idea of just improvising and riffing can sometimes be at the expense of story.

If the affairs of the world were put in the hands of the screwball artists, it couldn’t be in a worse state than it is now !

TV is very much my first love. I love this world. It's where writers have the most creative control, and I just love that.

I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: The world of art is the only such realm.

The most joyous painting is not done for the art world, it is done for the inner world.

The God-honest truth is that Jeff and I just do what we do. You have no control. We didn't have control last year, or the year before either, or the year before that. We can only do what we do, which is to make the show that we love, continue to follow the path for the stories that we want to tell, tell great and compelling stories, week-to-week, that interest our fans, and really hope for the best.

A studio session ... provides the greatest chance for control. Even though there is total freedom, I still dislike studio photography and the contrived images that usually stem from this genre.

Working with other people, it's hard to get them to make it sound like what you have in mind. Also, it's really expensive to get your tracks produced, so I thought if I could learn how to do it myself, I could make five albums in a month and it would be free, it would be me, and it would be everything that I'm doing.

If I don't have to think about the commercial aspect of it, then I feel like I'm going to make better films.

I feel real ownership in this show. I feel very invested in it. I care very much about it. I don't feel any more like a hired hand, you know? It's a strange feeling - I feel personally responsible for how the story goes. What happens. What the weaknesses are. And so in a way, some of the changes gave me an opportunity to have a voice in a different way.

The creative personality never remains fixed on the first world it discovers. It never resigns itself to anything.

I'm constantly being courted by labels and their backing. Obviously the market is there when you talk about the economics and the numbers, but it's hard to give up the freedom of being able to do whatever you want.

Every poet, be his outward lot what it may, finds himself born in the midst of prose; h e has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal.

Especially in the world of comedy, it feels like you have to be proactive, in terms of pitching and trying to sell and being a part of the creation of the stuff that you do.

You're always going to have ups and downs - if you look at the careers of a whole bunch of people I respect, some of them have good movies, some of them have bad movies. I remember Andrew Garfield said that the only power we really have as actors - or one of the main powers we have as actors - is our choices. We can make interesting choices, but as soon as you've made that choice, so much else is in play: the director, the script can change, the other actors. All you can do is try to make interesting choices and, once you're in it, just do the best you can.

I just want to do movies, and I want to sell them. I don't want to link up with some product.

There ought to be only one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is one must be half a tradesman.

Sometimes it's hard for me to tell the difference between independent filmmaking and studio filmmaking because all the studios have these little independent satellites. It's interesting.

I don't have an interest in being a director-for-hire on sitcoms - but if it's a really cool show that I thought I could bring something to, I would love to do that.

I desire that your conjectures should not reach beyond your creative will. Could you create a god? Then do not speak to me of any gods.

All I can to, and the only sense of control I have over this crazy moviemaking business, is to pick things that I like with people that I love and respect, and then just hope everything else works out.

Working on a novel is very solitary and I get to be the boss. I'm the dictator, so I win every battle. So, in that sense, novels are easier because you don't have to answer to anyone. And then, you go into something like film and there are more cooks in the kitchen, so to speak.

As playwrights, as poets, we have to look to ourselves, listen to our guts for the final answers about what changes to make. Everyone has advice about how to end your play differently. And it's not about right or wrong. At the end of the day, it's your baby and you know what's best.

The point of fashion is that you take the picture you want. And fashion is the only photography that allows fantasy, and I'm a fantasist.

Tangier is one of the few places left in the world where, so long as you don't proceed to robbery, violence, or some form of crude, antisocial behavior, you can do exactly what you want.