Theresa Rebeck Quotes

U2's best work has always been when we didn't know what we're doing.

I don't like persuaded sitters. I never could paint a cat if the cat had any scruples, religious, superstitious, or otherwise, about sitting.

But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose, I can only do what I am given, and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry - still.

Certainly in cartooning I'm given huge free rein at the moment.

The Internet offers opportunities that are more unique than ever before. With TV, I know I'm making 22 minutes; I know there's a commercial in the middle. With the Internet, no one knows anything. No rules.

I think anything I do will have an island feel, but I don't want it to be just that; I don't want to be put in a box.

There are just certain realities about our world and I just happen to be creative within it.

The thing I love about sketch is sometimes it leads you as opposed to you leading it.

Art is not predictable. Art is not golf, as great as that may be. There are 360 degrees of choice to make.

No actor has complete freedom.

The music, for me, doesn't come on a schedule. I don't know when it's going to come, and when it does, I want it out.

Once I had left 'Twin Peaks' and started doing other shows and other movies, I kept running into, 'No, no, we can't do it this way. This is the way it has to happen.' I'm like, 'No. I've already done it, and it worked, so I don't understand what you're saying.'

The thing about the creative process is it's so chaotic.

It's not that I don't want to do different films. The non-mainstream stuff that I did started to get successful... But for an industry which runs essentially on money, they do put you in a box.

We don't really think about it in a formulaic way, we just use the different styles as and when it feels right.

I just write the stuff that comes out of me, and then after that, I try to get it made. But I don't think, 'Will I get the money?' and 'Who's this made for?'

A lot of people like structure, so there's definitely a risk with being an artist that a lot of people aren't really willing to take.

With 'Haters Back Off,' I'm creating something that I want to make, and I'm not focused on, 'Is this gonna trend, is this gonna be popular?' I'm just focused on telling the story.

The joy is in the creation. So I've never had a target audience, it's always been about being true to the work as it emerges.

A lot of artists need structure.

No artist knows everything... but since every artist knows more than he can tell, all art is lying by omission.

it's difficult in Hollywood to be allowed to try anything. It's all a terrible compromise. There is no time for art. All that matters is what they call box office.

Creativity is enhanced by less-than-perfect control over what content is on the network.

Why, why, when one writes, does a sort of shackle bind one's imagination? I become conscious of a deadening mediocrity, perhaps a form of mental cowardice, and I long to break free, to let my imagination take wings. It doesn't - yet.

I know one thing - very few writers in Southern California get to write what they want to write. We are more or less worker ants, working for either film companies or tv companies or Internet companies. We do a lot of assigned work. Feelings hardly ever enter into it. If they do, they tend to be on a sort of soap opera level.