Maury Yeston Quotes

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.

Expect to make some mistakes when you try new and different approaches. Sometimes colossal failures lead to spectacular successes.

The slightest thing can ruin a scene, but you must be willing to take chances.

I think if you're going to be a little bit innovative or risk-taking, sometimes you're going to be wrong, and it's going to look bad. I understand that.

You do stuff that gets a reaction and you think 'that's a winner' and then it never sees the light of day. But the thing with improvisation is that 90% of what you come up with won't be used and for good reason. But you keep going for the occasional gem that you might come up with. You do a scene and a lot of the time. We wouldn't cut. So, you come up with something that might be funny and then you go, 'alright, what else'? So, you kind of throw stuff against the wall and see what happens. But you've got to be prepared to make a fool of yourself.

You can't succeed unless you've got failure, especially creatively.

Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional.

Part of the elasticity that you need, in order to continue to try to create, is the foregone conclusion that not all of it is going to be fabulously successful. But it's all going to be part of a long lifetime body of experimentation.

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

You write a hit the same way you write a flop.

I've had wonderful collaborators. They're very different, just as actors are. Working on a show with Nathan Lane is different from working on a show with Chita Rivera. It keeps you on your toes because it's different every time.

You hope and pray that you'll get involved with a director that you understand and who has the same sensibility as you do and knows how to push you and bring out the best in you.

'Humans of New York' did not result from a flash on inspiration. It grew from five years of experimenting, tinkering, and messing up.

You have to expect failure; not everything is going to work.

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Not every change will work out and your critics will focus mercilessly on those that don’t.

My career has gone in such a way that I've gotten to learn that, when you're working with a great storyteller, you don't ask questions; you just trust them.

Absolutely, you rise and fall based on your creative team.

I feel every day that everything I create - everything I do - I want it to be a risk. I think when you take the big swings - and I've done plenty of big swings that I was told were never going to work - those are always the things that break through.

I've bombed on stage millions and millions of times. And that's part of it. You go up with a half-baked idea, and you bomb, and so what? Nothing bad happens if you bomb.

I had no idea if 'No Roots' was going to work or not.

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.

With our producer, Greg Fidelman, it was really a joy to work with him and to try different things and experiment.

Joel Little and I have this certain chemistry we have when we work together.