Top 95 Improvisation Quotes

We actually use a lot of improvisation on ‘Transparent.’

The ‘Natmeg’ from England’s Natalie Sciver attracted a lot of attention as a brilliant piece of improvisation, which requires every bit as much talent as a Tillakaratne Dilshan ‘scoop,’ or a Jos Buttler ‘ramp’ shot.

The rules of improvisation apply beautifully to life. Never say no – you have to be interested to be interesting, and your job is to support your partners.

Improvisation has to do with exploring something like two brothers in a room together. You find out things about situations by discovering the things that they aren’t saying. It’s a way to explore scenes. Sometimes it’s more useful than others, but it’s always there to see if there’s anything that you might improve.

Even though the music I make gathers influences from all over the place, I feel that the core of what I do comes from the jazz tradition. In terms of improvisation, interaction, feel and overall concept, Jazz is my main source of information and inspiration.

Government tends to stifle innovation, and it abhors improvisation. Any good military strategist will tell you that a battle plan rarely survives past the first engagement. After that, you have to improvise to survive and to win.

I write through improvisation. I never card out a movie. You know how people will outline or card? I don’t do that. I tend to start with an idea and go.

There’s always a certain amount of camera improvisation.

What I love about jazz is the improvisation, the fact that you never know what’s going to happen next.

I love improvisation. It’s quite exciting.

Cutting improvisation is really hard, because things don’t match, and you end up with some bad cuts sometimes. But we’d rather have the bad cuts and the great improv.

When I sit down to write a song, it’s a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I’m about to do.

My game is based on improvisation. Often, a forward does not have the time to think too much. You have a second, rarely more, to decide whether to dribble, shoot or pass to the right or left. It is instinct that gives the orders.

‘Sicario’ was a lot of improvisation.

I mix everything up. A museum curator once said to me that there is a great jazz component to the way I do things because good jazz is improvisation and draws elements from all different cultures. And that’s the way I do everything – the way I dress and decorate.

Sometimes people have this notion that improvisation is simply intuitive leaping into the unknown.

I made ‘St. Nick’ on a 30-page outline. ‘Aint’ Them Bodies Saints’ was a full-bodied script, but it still had a lot of room for improvisation. There were scenes that weren’t there on the page – just a sentence saying something happens. I was like, ‘We’ll figure this out when we shoot it.’

For me anyway, until I was exposed to doing improvisation and walking onto a stage without any script, I would have never felt comfortable enough to walk into a room with someone like Larry David and audition.

Most of my act is improvisation. I’m inspired for the moment. Standing there in front of 2,000 or 3,000 people you don’t know can be pretty inspiring.

I started improvisation at age nine, and I loved it so much I stuck with it. As a by-product, acting was just something I was lucky enough to fall into.

Acting is really scary, but it’s also challenging, fun, hard work. There’s always an element of improvisation with every actor, even when something is really scripted.

The interesting thing about improvisation is you’re making something up in front of the audience. Now music helps you out a little bit because you have an instrument that’ll separate you from the audience.

It scared me to death to think about improv, but I got hired for a year at Second City in Chicago, which made me nervous, but I found I could improvise. Then I was in a group called the Ace Trucking Company, which we’d do, like, a half hour set of material, then open up for improvisation.

I never know what it’s going to look like. Wouldn’t be much point in painting if I already knew the outcome. I have a subject in front of me and I start flooding colour and making marks, I don’t know, it’s improvisation isn’t it?

Improvisation is a compositional method.

There are a lot of visual marks that have to be hit, and lines that need to be said in a right way – so there wasn’t really any improvisation on the set when it came to the bulk of the script.

When I think back now to the recording sessions, there is more improvisation than one hears. It’s an ideal combination of arrangements and improvisation. Only a few people are able to listen and say what is composed and what is improvised. It’s a unit.

In comedy, my strengths are improvisation.

There’s nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.

We like to create an atmosphere where people can try whatever they want and experiment. But ultimately people tend to fall on the script and there isn’t a ton of improvisation. There certainly are some improvised moments and we encourage that. If it’s better than what we wrote it’ll be in the movie and if not, it’s out.

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

As you know from reading many of these Negro writers, we don’t deal too much with the discussion of democracy and what it means and how improvisation fits in all that.

Working with animals forces an actor to work harder because you have to be quick when it comes to improvisation, and you can’t break character – at all.

Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.

There’s always some room for improvisation.

Perfect retention. I don’t think I could do that-I’ve never disciplined myself to do it. I suppose a lot of it is a question of discipline. Which improvisation is not.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I’m blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don’t want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.

To be a good improviser, you have to study composition as a parallel. Because what improvisation is, on a high level, is spontaneous composition.

Ginger Baker was never my favorite, but he was part of the group Cream that opened the door to what we did. They were the first band to really get into improvisation. They were an absolute necessity to what came later.

Politics is a matter of day-to-day improvisation, and it often seems as though the major parties are guided only by the desire to stay in office and not by any philosophy that might justify their doing so.

When I came to Chicago, I didn’t even know what improvisation meant, as far as pertaining to comedy. I knew about Second City, but I didn’t know what the word ‘improvisation’ meant.

A lot of improvisation and freedom went into ‘Pinata.’

People are tired of constant movement, improvisation, and wild scrambling when plans fail.

I love improvisation.

In some ways, jazz is the most precise of art forms and the loosest in the sense that it’s all about improvisation, but the musicianship required is kind of insane. To actually play with real jazz musicians is a different level of musicianship that almost has no equal in any other form of music in the world.

In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material.

I approach music and acting the same way, through spontaneous improvisation. I never really try to rehearse anything, do it over and over, except when we’re inside a take.

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

Jazz is all about improvisation and it’s about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you’ll never do it this way twice. I’ve studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

While watching him work on the set of the film based on my life – Patch Adams – I saw that whenever there was a stressful moment, Robin would tap into his improvisation style to lighten the mood of cast and crew.

I’ve always been a spontaneous singer. And all the stuff that you hear on the end of the songs, what they call the ad libs – that just comes out of my head. That’s not thought out at all. I have the verses and the choruses, and then after that it’s total improvisation.

Comedy is far more difficult, as it involves improvisation and impromptu acting, and as an actor, that came as a welcome break for me.

When you improvise alone, you don’t risk a lot, but doing an improvisation when you are two is even more difficult because you need to listen exactly to understand what is going to happen.

You know I’ve never worked without a script before, but with Apatow, it’s all improvisation. He calls out a premise, and you have to adapt.