Karl Shapiro Quotes

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.

I wish to sing of my interior visions with the naive candour of a child.

The child and the great artist -- these alone receive the sensation fresh as it was at the beginning of the world.

The artists must see all things as if he were seeing them for the first time. All his life he must see as he did when he was a child.

No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.

The quality of artistry is the capacity to assume innocence at will, the quality of experiencing innocence as if for the first time.

Make something new, and define territory that's never been. I fall in love with shows because I've never see that before. I fall in love with new vocabularies.

Good literature can be created only with something that is different from literature.

We can use techniques in modifying things, in controlling things, but the first impulse has to be something that you simply cannot make just out of technique, or else it becomes perfectly evident that it is nothing but technique that you're exercising.

Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.

It's very important to understand that we never do the same thing twice; each of our projects is unique. We'll never do another 'Gates.' Each project is a unique image. We do not know in advance how the work will look. I do preparatory drawings, but they are only projections of our vision.

In the creative industries, there are few things more exciting than a zinger - a thought, idea, line, plot device - anything really, that just totally works in a fundamentally new and fresh way. It's like a uniquely lovely melody or a new taste idea in cooking. Something special, something new, something wonderful. They're also very rare.

I always say that I'm at my best when there's no example of what the character is supposed to be. I thrive when there's not much and I have to create it.

Each production is its own experience.

It's hard to find things that haven't been said before or drawn before, but I'm trying.

Originality is only variation.

Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, and all flock to their aid.

I'd like to pretend that I've never seen anything, never read anything, never heard anything... and then make something.

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment.

Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are timeless.

One must, of course, have one's entire experience behind one and not have lost the freshness of instinct.

It is certain that at certain times talent entirely overcomes thought or poetry.

My material is as new as anything on the dinner table. What difference does it make if I'm 70 or if I'm 20? The audience knows they aren't getting any old stories from me.

A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.

Over time, naturally, you lose your innocence from gaining knowledge. You can't be innocent forever, but there's something in innocence you need to regain to be creative.