John Carpenter Quotes

I've always done very 'composed' music and worked-out solos. But sometimes it's fun not knowing where you're going.

I really like to experiment. That's the only way I can work. It's instinctive.

That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

With Fincher, you can take chances and try things. And what happens is that any pretension and preparation you've done, all the square, intellectual work, you can't keep that up for 40 takes. It breaks down, and new things start popping up. This, for me, is the most exciting thing about film-making.

I love working with actors who will just go, 'Oh O.K., let's try it and see where it goes,' and 'Let's see what we can discover.'

Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.

Its just you and your opponent at the board and you're trying to prove something

Studios might support people trying to do something a little bit different and they'd be more open to the fact that there's more than one path to the waterfall.

Usually, you get a script and you have the whole story. All the acts are there, for a play. You know what happens in the first, second and third acts, and you know how it starts, where you go and where it finishes. [With American Horror Story: Asylum], it's a whole new experience. I don't know where it's going, and I don't know what's going to happen next. It's been an interesting way to work. It's made me work in a much more fluid, braver way, just taking every chance that comes along.

How do you beat Bobby Fischer? You play him at any game but chess. I try to stay in games where I have an edge.

My life has always been unplanned. So when something comes along, I feel like, Why not give it a try? It's fun to experiment like that.

To me it's just going for the moment that counts. Sometimes, I'll have all the elements there, and I like to play and push something, and to me, in the end, you do achieve things that you're not aware of in the beginning, even though you're there trying to get them.

I'm really keen to try things. I love improvisation. It's quite exciting.

You are not just, "This is the way I play it every night." You are constantly finding new ways in, new attacks, "I want to try it this way. Maybe this scene is affecting that scene. I want to attack this scene differently."

U2's best work has always been when we didn't know what we're doing.

When I do a take, I very often try things that I haven't planned to try to see if I can pull it off.

The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

I love acting with kids, cause they're great acting partners. They're totally present. Even when they're acting, they're still available and you can crack them up or something weird will happen and they'll go with it.

Let the novelists fret about consistency - story writers should feel free to jam; to get things right in new, surprising ways by allowing themselves, now and then, to get things wrong.

I love to play things that are out-of-the-box. It's just that I don't always get the chance to do it!

I'm not a trained chef, so I end up making stuff up. It either turns out brilliant or an absolute disaster. I just go for it.

Playing with decks, for me, has always been about trying new things. I make it a point to keep trying different things, keep pushing it a little bit at a time.

You know. I'll try anything. I'll do anything. I'll explore. Try different takes. All that kind of stuff to do sometimes, to do good performances, but always conducive to having a good time creatively.