Kate Clinton Quotes

In trying to make something new, half the undertaking lies in discovering whether it can be done. Once it has been established that it can, duplication is inevitable.

I think a lot of what you do in acting, and for the most part singing and dancing and everything, is trial and error. It's all about just seeing what works, and if it does, to use it, and if not, to throw it away.

I always treat each take as a rehearsal for the next take. That way you can find stuff and keep adding and playing until they tell me to stop.

Give the composer time to experiment, time to try out ideas. Also, the time to fail. When the composer has very little time, the temptation is to reach for stock ideas - ideas they know will work and have worked in the past.

Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing.

To create something new is both thrilling and excruciating at the same time. It's great to have all these choices in front of you, and to have the writers in the room so you know exactly what they meant. But the downside is you want so badly not to screw it up!

The biggest thing about me, as an actor, is I'm never a finished product, you know? I always want to try something or be in a new genre because, one, it's much more fun to do that because you're not doing the same thing over and over.

I really strive to bring something new to each book. I don't want to write the same book over and over again.

My idea of artistry has always been 'try everything until you find out what works.'

There is something about a theatre room that is really like a laboratory for trying things and failing, because you have time to do that, and you can explore something deeply and discard it if it's not working.

I improvise a lot and try something new every couple of years.

I've always been a great believer that you have to keep producing new things in order to keep life interesting - not only for ourselves, but for the audience as well. That's really always been our principle and way of working.

I go into the whole composer thing quite open to keep on going and keep on trying different things because you never know... the next idea you have might be the one.

There's no way to really mock up or simulate what I'm doing until I'm there. An exhibition for me is not a statement but an experiment.

I'm one of those actors who likes to do it wrong nine ways before I come to the tenth way, which is the way I think it should be.

Creative experimentation propels our culture forward. That our stories of innovation tend to glorify the breakthroughs and edit out all the experimental mistakes doesn't mean that mistakes play a trivial role. As any artist or scientist knows, without some protected, even sacred space for mistakes, innovation would cease.

Musical accidents are a gold mine. The thing about accidental discoveries is they won't be made unless you put yourself in a position to make that discovery. To do that means hundreds of hours, days and weeks where you do things and don't discover anything.

I really like to experiment. That's the only way I can work. It's instinctive.

He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery.

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.

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

Nintendo's philosophy is never to go the easy path; it's always to challenge ourselves and try to do something new.

Mistakes and dead-ends often mean more to these artists than any proven problem.

Ideas must be put to the test. That's why we make things, otherwise they would be no more than ideas. There is often a huge difference between an idea and its realisation. I've had what I thought were great ideas that just didn't work.

Nothing is invented and perfected at the same time.