Bill Bruford Quotes

I think it was Duke Ellington who once said that we're always most pleased with our current record. I mean, you have to assume that you learn from one, and you do something better next time.

My first records are integral because I made them, you know, and I'm going to learn from those mistakes.

I remember Francis Bacon would say that he felt he was giving art what he thought it previously lacked. With me, it's what Yeats called the fascination with what's difficult. I'm only trying to do what I can't do.

Mistakes and dead-ends often mean more to these artists than any proven problem.

That's the purpose of creative stuff: when you really love what you do, you have to know at some point, or points, you're not going to be good at it. That's just the process of learning. I can edit it and try to be as perfect as I can, but I'm still going to have my vulnerable spots and my weaknesses.

I always start a film thinking I know how to do it, then I learn all over again.

I don't think anybody really super-consciously tries to develop a style to play.

Sometimes you write songs that don't all fit together. What do you, just throw them away? This might be a chance for growth and learning. It could be a horrible fall-on-your-face kind of experiment.

There's definitely going to be things that I'm not very good at, things I can improve.

I remember, when I first rapped, I was writing raps. I don't write raps at all; I stopped early. I don't know - it seems like every day I find something a little bit easier.

I'm doing a lot of mistakes, like every human being.

When I started building things, obviously I was pretty bad at it. You cant be good at it from the start, and I decided to just embrace that, roll with it, and turn it into something funny.

I kind of like the way that I came up as an artist. I like experimenting.

It seems to me that I never grow unless I'm actually working with other actors who have shed whatever shell it is that keeps them insulated from each other.

You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.

It's different when you're in a huge movie and you're being told that you can do whatever you want. It was also really cool because it helped me grow so much faster than I would have, if I did another thing where it was like, "Here's what you're saying, and that's it. Do not go off page."

You will learn and grow the least in your areas of weakness.

I think that new artistic challenges help you grow both as a person, as an artist, and then they feed back into your other work, and tend to magnify it.

Don't try to make comparisons between your own pictures. Forget what you have done and think only of making the best of what you are doing.

Don't worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can't help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you'll have a style, whether you want it or not. Don't worry about whether you're "commercial". Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you.

As a writer, you don't know what the hell you're doing. You're just doing it. You hope it works out well.

When I am making music, I am growing at the same time, ain't I?

Understand your limitations and capitalize on them.

Just because I make films doesn't mean I think they're great. I just make them and then when I'm done with them I'm just a filmgoer like I always am. They're all lessons. I'm still in film school, honestly. And this one is just a dry run for whatever the next one is.

Practice. Learn and then unlearn - that's the trick in finding your own style of playing. You can't merely emulate, you have to innovate, or at the very least create your own path into the process.