Elizabeth Berg Quotes

When it's time to make music, that's about getting lost for me. To be a control freak is not half as good as being a freak who's casually in control. You're feeling around in the dark for something that feels good.

I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote 'Search.' There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove.

With improvisation, I just do it. It might be a total failure but then you just throw the dice again.

When I put my brush to canvas, I never know what I'm going to paint. It's like when you're walking down the street with your hands in your pockets, humming a tune, you don't know what you'll be humming five minutes from now.

I think I get credit for my timing because most of the time, I really have no idea where I'm going with it.

I'm a guy who likes to make it up as he goes along.

I just write what I think is funny, or interesting, and hopefully everything else will take care of itself. There's no strategy to anything.

You're at your best when you don't know what you're doing.

The beauty of the unexpected and unknown, and it's certainly very tantalizing for me as an actor. Other actors can't deal with that; they want to know, but then they make choices and decisions with that knowledge because that knowledge gives them forethought, and they can think about how they want to play something that takes away spontaneity of what they could be doing.

I don't plan. I don't think, 'I have to do this kind of part 'cause I've done that kind of part.' I'm not a very good planner.

I never work out my leads. Everything I do is usually totally spontaneous. If someone says, 'That was good; play that again,' I'm not able to do it.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

Things kind of happen organically with me.

The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

There's actually something interesting about having no rehearsal time - you have to just walk in and go with your gut, which is exciting.

I have always moved by intuition alone. I have no system, literary or political. I have no guiding political idea.

I don't want actors to know anything. The more they are lost, the better they play.

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play.

I don't know, my music has always just come from where the wind blew me. Like where I'm at during a particular moment in time.

Life isn't a science. We make it up as we go.

There is a part of your brain that has to stop when you're acting. You have to be in the moment and dare to fly. Words can't be on your mind.

Sometimes I think your intellect can get in your way as an actor or an artist. When you come from a world of improv and comedy, you're able to let it flicker and fall out.

When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do.

The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.