Abbie Hoffman Quotes

The hardest thing is that I never do anything the same way twice, and when I'm on the air, I'm very unscripted, and I'm very comfortable in that role. So me being scripted is not a comfortable place for me.

Scripts are corny and predictable. Real life is always better.

I try to preload as little as I can. I like to come to the set with minimal preparation.

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.

There is no facet of my professional life that doesn't require or request improvisation.

I ad lib. I've gotta bring my own into it.

If somebody says, "Oh, we're going to improvise!," I'm like, Oh, get me out of here.

You don't have to just do what's planned, you can take what's immediately in front of you and use that.

These are days when no one should rely unduly on his competence. Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.

I need to be spontaneous sometimes. Sometimes I find that the little detail or nuance that you add to it that's based on what's happening at the time that's not very rehearsed often ends up feeling like the funniest thing.

When you work without a script, you are in a sense working in a much more improvisational way than when you are prepared totally.

My life is a performance for which I was never given any chance to rehearse.

A lot of improvisation ends up being about just thinking outside of the box in the scene. It's not improvisation as much as it is quickness or making it real.

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

I think part of that is to create an environment where it's like real life, where you don't really know what's going to happen to you in a certain scene.

The stage and the live crowd taught me to think on my feet, to improvise.

I act every day of my life.

I never rehearse. Never! I think it's a waste of time.

In real life, you don't know what's going to happen to you, so why would your character know? It's liberating to play the emotion your character is feeling at the time and not know what's coming up. I like it.

I'm very open and never write what I'm going to say. Speeches bore everybody else. I have to freestyle. Every time, from one program to another, everything changes and I improvise.

Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.

I think that's the thing I learned at 'Saturday Night Live' - any time I would try and strategize, I would always, always fall on my face. Things worked out when I tried to make it about what I was feeling at that moment and what I was into in that moment of my life.

I don't really like 'acting' - I like things to feel as natural as possible.

Books are only the shadow and life the real thing. I believe this as strongly as any belief I hold.

Pretending that we live doesn't make us alive.