Alan Arkin Quotes

To me, acting is like a party. It's like a fun thing to do. You don't have to worry. You don't have to agonize about anything.

As far as I'm concerned, dance is a passion for me. I don't do homework and go to the sets. I believe in being impromptu. I just go on the sets and start doing whatever comes to my mind.

There's a thing about trying too hard, which I think is in all forms, which is if you really try to do things really well, you can get to a less good place than if you just let go and let it fly. Especially in creativity.

You'd never be able to convince someone to give you money to do a bilingual story where you're not translating half of it - you'd drive people crazy. But in comics, you can do whatever your heart desires.

Improv is like writing. It's actually a different discipline to acting. It helps acting greatly, but it's completely different. It's the same side of your brain when you write as when you improv.

Dance constitutes a true recapturing of... freedom and childish play.

Artists of all disciplines must be willing to go into the dark, let go control, be surprised.

Make connections; let rip; and dance where you can.

Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.

The first time I started choreographing was in the dark, in my living room, with the lights completely out, to some popular music on the radio. I put the radio on full blast and I started moving. I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't want to see it... I had to start in the dark.

I think that music, or at least the kind of music that I make, benefits greatly from improvisation.

When you've managed to stumble directly into the heart of the unknown - either through the misdirection of others, or better yet, through your own creative ineptitude - there is no one there to hold your hand or tell you what to do. In those bad lost moments, in the times when are advised not to panic, we own the unknown, and the world belongs to us. The child within has full reign. Few of us are ever so free

What makes people and companies and artistic directors and choreographers interested in working with dancers is the ability to kind of let go of everything you think you know and be a blank canvas.

When I stand before a canvas, I never know what I'll do, and I am the first one surprised at what comes out.

When I discovered dancing, I learned to dream.

Authorship is not a trade, it is an inspiration; authorship does not keep an office, its habitation is all out under the sky, and everywhere the winds are blowing and the sun is shining and the creatures of God are free.

Where there is no heart there is no art.

Keep me up till five because all your stars are out, and for no other reason…Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I’m feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I’d give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart.

Artists are nearest God. Into their souls he breathes his life, and from their hands it comes in fair, articulate forms to bless the world.

Acting is the only time when I truly maintain the spontaneity that I want to be present at all times.

As an actor, there was that freedom of not having to worry about lights or marks or other people. It was just going out there and having fun with the character.

Everything that creative people think and do is from the heart.

Writing for me, even what you call serious writing, is play.

From my spirit's gray defeat, From my pulse's flagging beat, From my hopes that turned to sand Sifting through my close-clenched hand, From my own fault's slavery, If I can sing, I still am free. For with my singing I can make A refuge for my spirit's sake, A house of shining words, to be My fragile immortality.

When I'm recording, which is synonymous with writing, I'll play things over and over again until it sounds like I've got the right guitar part. Whereas I think, as the much younger player I tended to do things much more consciously. I didn't wait for the moment where inspiration might strike. That's what I do now. I wait for it to naturally start to replay itself in my mind. As I say, I don't force it. So I like to think of myself as a receiver. I'm a telephone line to who knows where, but until I hear it through that receiver, I don't usually do it. It's got to start writing itself somehow.