Al Hirschfeld Quotes

Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, but that's what we face when we're dealing with improvisation.

I have no time for specialized concerns, working themes or variations that lead to mastery... I like the indefinite, the boundless; I like continual uncertainty. Other qualities may be more conducive to achievement, publicity, success; but they are all outworn - as outworn as ideologies, opinions, concepts and names for things.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

It's really hard for me to commit, one way or the other. I was just always creating and seeing what came out.

I like uncertainty in roles, and I like uncertainty in art, really.

Like everybody, I'm making up my life as I go along.

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.'

I'm not somebody who plans. There were times I planned a lot in my life, and it never turns out how you plan it. So I think it's important not to. I'm a very spontaneous person.

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

I'm just working and having a good time and seeing what develops, which is so awesome, because you don't know what's going to happen, and I'm letting myself do that a lot more than I ever have.

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

The essence of play is that the sequence of actions is fluid and scattered.

With improvisation, I just do it. It might be a total failure but then you just throw the dice again.

I am a control freak, but not when I travel. For some reason when I travel, I am able to surrender more than in my real life. I am able to let go. I think it's why I like it so much.

Life, work - it's all very organic and fluid, a laboratory. I always tell people: whatever your thing is, you just have to be in it. Jump in; you'll figure it out.

Liberalism regards life as an adventure in which we must take risks in new situation, in which there is no guarantee that the new will always be the good or the true, in which progress is a precarious achievement rather than inevitability.

So much of making movies is about discovery on the day, what you're figuring out. If you know everything going in, then it's not worth doing - it's already done.

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

I'm not a planner. I like to try something different, to just see what happens.

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

I like to improvise; I think it's just a healthy thing to do, to keep everything loose and fun.

I don't really know what I'm doing, to be honest. I come up with things, and maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't, and I try to learn from my castmates and director and from everyone.

My life and career have been a big improvisation.

I prefer my hesitations, my false paths, my stammering, to a preconceived idea.

Life is an art, not a science. You make it up as you go along.