Merce Cunningham Quotes

I would say for the young: Don't be straight jacketed by ideology. Don't be driven by a structure of ideas.

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right.

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

When you're used to being prepared to reject conventional wisdom, it leaves you open to learn more.

I've never taken any issue off the table for lack of suitability. Only for lack of imagination.

There's always some room for improvisation.

The main thing in making art often is letting go of your expectation and your idea.

I certainly agree that putting everything into little genres is counterproductive. You're not going to get too many surprises if you only focus on the stuff that fits inside the box that you know.

Sometimes they try to put you inside a box, but I look at my filmography and I've been able to do a lot.

You have to get a little untrapped from too much prior knowledge.

You have to have an unlimited imagination, an unlimited restraint on your inhibition when you're working. You have to even dare to fail, even in a scene, whatever it is.

I like to experiment, and as an actress, I always thought it's good to be open about a lot of things.

I wasn't overwhelmed by dogma, and that sort of freed me up to look at things differently.

I want to see creativity that breaks boundaries and isn't just about money.

While I was a student at The Cooper Union, they discouraged too much of a focus on any one medium, and it helped me try new and different things.

I don't categorise cinema at all. If I am doing this, that means I am limiting myself.

I don't want to limit myself to any genre or language or a type. I want to always surprise the audience and, hence, keep raising the bar for myself.

I'm old enough to know you can't close your mind to new ideas. You have to test out every possibility if you want something new.

There's a lack of creativity in every field because people are afraid. As an artist in this world we can do whatever we want

Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be.

I'm also a big believer of being a scrappy entrepreneur. To be successful you don't have to have all this crazy start-up capital or a ton of knowledge. I think it's actually helpful sometimes to not know all the rules because that way it's easier to break them. And that's why it's so much easier for younger people, I think, to start companies that are challenging more traditional business models than older people. Especially if you're trying to do something good.

Let's think beyond the normal stuff and have an environment where that sort of thinking is encouraged and rewarded and where it's okay to fail as well. Because when you try new things, you try this idea, that idea... well a large number of them are not gonna work, and that has to be okay. If every time somebody comes up with an idea it has to be successful, you're not gonna get people coming up with ideas.

I think one of the things about creativity is not to be afraid of saying the wrong thing.

Above all, try something