Mike Portnoy Quotes

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.

In art, anything goes, and if it goes, it goes.

We always have a take that's 'one for fun', so once you've got what you need, you can do what you like. Something does occasionally pop out of that tree. I'm always open to ideas.

What I have to do as a musician is do everything that is not on the music.

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.

I've always said that with kids' TV that people get stuck in it from drama school but that's not fair because I know myself that when you go in creatively, kids are so much more open to ideas. You're so much freer to mess about and try things.

It's really fun to just stretch out and not have any boundaries or just try something for the craft.

We wanted to write songs that we really like that incorporate everything. It seems a lot of bands want to stick with one thing. We didn't want to be scared to do anything that we wanted to do. We didn't want anything to hold us back. We wanted no boundaries.

If you're always playing the correct notes, there's something wrong - you're not searching; you're not reaching for anything.

We all have to open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to try and arrive at something new and different.

I was playing with sound like I would have played with pots and pans as a kid.

Certainty is a closing of the mind. To create something new you must have doubt.

I trust in my inspiration, really, and that's difficult because sometimes you would rather be technical. And once you empty your mind, empty your brain, it's really incredible. I'm very caring about things that dash into my brain, and I make sure I don't just clog it.

One can't be of an enquiring and experimental nature, and still be very sensible.

I just like music all the way around the board. I can't stick to one thing - I've got to move around.

You have to free your mind to do things you wouldn't think of doing. Don't ever say no.

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

I go into the whole composer thing quite open to keep on going and keep on trying different things because you never know... the next idea you have might be the one.

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.

Musicians are always eclectic. Musicians are always curious and hungry for new things.

The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance - the idea that anything is possible.

See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules.

We have the script, we have the actors, and we're trying to figure out what this is, and you don't know what it is. You have to be open to what it's going to become rather than have this thing that you're trying to get to, which is boring.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.

Australians don't have a preconceived notion of what things have to be... we can go on a fantastic journey.