Derek Waters Quotes

Comedy is like music; it builds on itself. Once someone comes up with a theory or a different way of doing things, people start to mimic it on some level. That's why you go back to the guys you loved in the 80s... and it just seems tired now, because it was all foundation.

I feel like I'm always fighting not to repeat myself.

I always try to be alert to the potential for repetition, for a decaying orbit with regard to my use of technique, etc.

I have this theory that your first film is always your best film in some way. I always try to get back to that moment when you're not relying on things you've done before.

The minute you start assuming that the audience is very happy to see the same show again, you're dead.

I don't really know, I was thinking about that the other day that there aren't a lot of younger up and comers that I'm that interested in, in the comedy world. Everyone seems to be trying to play it safe.

It's kind of true that they just start making the same movie over and over again. It's also true that the times dictate what kind of movies get made and what kind are not. So I'm always looking for something that's a little fresh and something that I haven't seen before.

Taste in comedy, like fashion, changes all the time.

Some people burn out, and some people like Clint Eastwood, he was a wild, international movie star in his 30s, and he's doing the best work of his life now. Go figure.

If you keep yourself alive and current, funny is funny.

When I finish a film, I want to forget it. I never like to repeat myself. Maybe, when I am dead, they will find certain consistencies in the style of my films, but I never want one film to look like another.

Always changing genres, making very different films is a good idea. It's a way of making yourself feel vulnerable again, getting back to that innocence. As is working within a circumspect budget.

I'm 45 years old. I used to be a club girl, but that's not my world anymore. That doesn't mean I can't make music that excites. I think it's inspiring to see an artist you grew up with take another crack.

Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather than you. Each book is unlike the others because you are not bringing the same voice to every book. I think that keeps you alive as a writer.

You look at most artists, the arc of their career, there's a definite decline at the end. And that decline could set in at any time. In your 50s, or your 60s and 70s if you're lucky. Time goes by fast, and you've got to be busy all the time.

I wanted to make sure to always stay current, try to find new material and stay with the modern techniques.

One of the things that's great about doing a show over and over again... is that you have to find ways to make it spontaneous, as though everything is happening for the first time... to continue to mine the material and find new things.

I'm not big on sequels; I've done them, but I like doing little things that have their own timelessness to them, classic type things, and then you go onto something new.

If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now 'grieving' for 'Calvin and Hobbes' would be wishing me dead.

I've learned that you can do something great, but you have to continue reinventing yourself as an artist. So by the time someone else is copying your style, you have something else to offer your audience.

I think the best artists find ways to reinvent themselves. They find new ways to tell their stories, or they find new stories to tell.

After years of doing composition, the risk is always that you might start to repeat and be cliche. Every time, I try find a way to be reborn again as an artist. Its not easy to reinvent yourself every time, as it takes a lot of creative energy, but I am happy to do it.

The hardest I've ever laughed in a cinema was at 'Silent Movie' by Mel Brooks. I was 12-ish and I actually fell out of my seat. I saw it 10 years later hoping for the same hilarity but it didn't happen. I'm not sure if that's because of me or the film.

By the time you do what somebody else is doing, everybody has moved on to something else.

There may never be anything new to say, but there is always a new way to say it, and since, in art, the way of saying a thing becomes a part of what is said, every work of art is unique and requires fresh attention.