Patti Smith Quotes

I love improv-ing, you know, from very early on when I started acting the school that I went to and everything was very big on ad-libbing and improv-ing and messing things up, so I feel very comfortable doing stuff like that.

I basically expect anything. Isn't that wild? I used to surprise myself a lot: certain moves, how I'd get out of trouble. But at some point, you accept the talent that you have, you accept your creativity.

I've worked with collage a lot. And there's this chance thing that happens - you don't always control things. Why did you find this today and not this? But you've got this thing, and you make it work. It's the way life is, I suppose. Whatever happens, you deal with it.

My improv definitely shows a different side of myself, which is more true to what my real humor is and what my real personality is, and I think - I guess 'wild' is a good word for it. I'm still sweet! But I won't let anyone walk all over me.

I am very much a seat-of-the-pants actor. I will prepare when I have to. But I like being unprepared.

Believe it or not, I write on stage. I can't write anywhere else; I have to be in a moment. I also have to challenge myself to make something funny out of a premise. I never have my own jokes written. I have to change things as I go along, and I have to entertain myself.

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.

You have to be able to fail with the improv. You have to not care.

I take improv classes. Improv is something I can use in any aspect of life.

No one could ad lib like Peter. You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn't.

I may play the same songs night to night, but I never play them the same way.

As a singer, I float around. I'm kind of scatty, bouncing around a lot. I try to adapt to what's going on around me in the song and the arrangement.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

It comes down to the difference between what you were planning to do and what life throws at you and you have to end up doing. The one who knows how to improvise is the one who comes out ahead.

It's always fun to improvise.

I don't need a stage to perform. We just need something to stand on.

Like a good play-caller, a good TV guy, if you get going on a good conversation, you can ad-lib a little bit. You keep it going. Just like in a game, if you call a couple plays and they're working, you come back to them.

You have to be able to adjust on the fly, and that is what the great ones do.

I personally don't lock in a performance, because I do leave room for things to happen, so I just make sure I'm very intimate with what I'm saying and why I'm saying it so that no matter what happens, we can do whatever we want to do and leave space for play.

As producers, you always have to go with the flow and be ready to embrace change, and drama and whatever happens.

Practice your improv more than learn your lines. 'Cause there's no way you'll be able to learn all those lines in a short time. You have to realize what you know and what you don't know - and what you don't know, just come up with three alternate lines or improv that you can put in that spot.

Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.

Life is improvisation. All of those [improv] classes were like church to me. The training had seeped into me and changed who I am.

When I was a young fellow, I used to learn the dialogue backwards. The point is that in a conversation between two people, you can't have already made the decisions about what you're gonna do. You gotta be very light on your feet. That leads you into areas where conversations can have a much bigger, grander meaning.

When everything else breaks down, I don't hesitate to roam out of the pocket and do the boogaloo.