Dan Harmon Quotes

The Web meant that I didn't have to schlep a whole bunch of stuff to a museum and fight with all their constraints and make something that, in the end, only 150 people would actually get out to see. Instead, I could put something together in my lab and make it accessible to the world.

There's definitely a luxury to the fluidity of not being a mega-star. I've done a ton of really, really odd, off-the-wall movies. There's this movie I did called 'Queens of Country' a couple of summers ago that is so bananas, and if I was at a certain level, I probably would not have done that movie.

The thing that I enjoy about animation is the fact that it is unbridled, and there are no boundaries; when you are in the room, you don't have to focus on your clothing, make-up, hair, your choreography or your blocking; you really do have total freedom.

The genres are widening. I don't think that there's as many limitations on the kinds of projects that actors can do as there once was.

Being a filmmaker in the digital platform has given me complete creative control. I can make what I want, when I want. I don't have to wait to book an audition.

With 'The Crazies,' we had a lot of room to play and manipulate and change things. When you get something bigger, you have less control in that sense unless you're one of the three stars.

Animation in itself has so many different looks and styles and possibilities.

I'm not precious about anything. The effort it took to get something means nothing to me in post. It means nothing to the audience. I'll chop limbs off. I'll put an arm where a leg should be. I'll do anything.

I think '60s are appealing to creative people, because it seemed to be a time of endless possibilities, when the boundaries of what could be considered popular culture were being expanded almost by the week. It doesn't feel like that anymore. At times, I wish it were so. Radio is a perfect example; good God, I mean, back then the most interesting songs were also hits, and that's just not true anymore. It hasn't been true in a long time.

The mental state I'm in is completely different, but the act of trying to write is the same. I mean, in all instances you try to write good sentences. But in a novel you're free to do whatever you want, and in the autobiographical works you can't make things up.

I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.

You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? Yes. Mrs. Whatsit said. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

Um, well my main profession is acting and music is what I love doing. It's kind of nice like that in a way because it means I'm under no real pressure with the music. I have got complete creative control and I can make whatever I want. So, that takes a lot of the pressures off because there's no financial pressure. And it's something I've always loved doing.

The world has certain rules - Hollywood has certain rules - but it doesn't mean you have to play by them, and I don't, or I'd be a miserable person.

You can put out an album and it could be totally out of the window as far as what you want to do performance-wise.

The nice part about not being a huge film is that you get to goof around a bit more.

My thing is: stay creative. And just because somebody starts to pay you, that don't mean all your creativity goes to that, and you don't save none for yourself to be able to do other, bigger and better things and still follow your dreams even if you start off inside of a box.

I like a director that encourages me to be playful. I don't really like being restricted or controlled by a director.

The directors I consider really great have the ability to recognize when something's going in an unexpected direction and see it as a bonus and be able to go with it, as opposed to locking down what they thought was going to happen.

After you've learned two or three basic rules of cinema grammar, you can do what you like - including breaking those rules.

Poetry, which is our relation to the senses, enables us to retain a living relationship to all things. It is the quickest means of transportation to reach dimensions above or beyond the traps set by the so-called realists. It is a way to learn levitation and travel in liberated continents, to travel by moonlight as well as sunlight.

The artist must ever play and experiment with new means of arranging experience, even though the majority of his audience may prefer to remain fixed in their old perceptual attitudes.

Somebody's going to hear a song that will key in a nerve or something in their experience that represents their own vision. And the next person is going to see it completely different. So even what it means to me is probably irrelevant. It's totally irrelevant. What matters is what it means to each person listening to it.

I don't really wanna think about themes. I wanna just think about the experience of the movie. I feel like, as soon as I reduce it to a theme, once I write that sentence, it won't be that great. I feel like there's more potential for it to mean something interesting if I'm not forcing it to mean something I've already decided.

If economic progress means that we become anonymous cogs in some great machine, then progress is an empty promise.