Rick Rubin Quotes

My plan is to have no plan. If you know what plan you have, life has its own ideas and will take you in any direction it pleases. So my idea about life is to just be open to it and to go with the flow and go with my gut.

My goal is always to keep my ears as wide open as possible.

My methodology is not knowing what I'm doing and making that work for me.

A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.

I'm just sort of making it up as I go along.

I rarely know too much about anything I'm getting involved in.

I'm a guy who likes to make it up as he goes along.

You can't think about what you're going to do. It just gets in the way. You have to be just available for life, otherwise you're not bringing anything to the party. So I don't lie awake thinking about what I'm going to do workwise. There's just too much going on.

I'll play it first and figure out what it's called later.

I know for sure that nothing is guaranteed. Life always changes. I know for sure that I'm open to all possibilities always... let's just say my life is never boring.

I've always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.

I don't plan. I don't think, 'I have to do this kind of part 'cause I've done that kind of part.' I'm not a very good planner.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

My grandfather taught me how important it is to have your eyes open, because you never know what's going to come your way.

There are always things to examine. What's great is not feeling that I have to refuse any of them. Maybe no good from a PR perspective, but from the point of view of everyday life, it keeps things interesting.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

The more faithfully you listen to the voices within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.

I know it's cheesy, but if you listen to the universe, it gives you pointers. I strongly believe if you keep your ears open and eyes open, your path will become clear. You just have to make sure you don't ignore it.

In my work, I have never had any use for anything that I have known in advance.

A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.

You learn a lot when you're barefoot. The first thing is every step you take is different.

There's so much happenstance, so many accidents - stumbling into something and finding it interesting and living with it over time and building on it. It's okay to work from doubt. You need to be willing to not know.

I like to go with the energy because when you ignore it that's when you start doing things wrong.

Spontaneity, the hallmark of childhood, is well worth cultivating to counteract the rigidity that may otherwise set in as we grow older.