Quotes about Improvisation

You improvise songs on the harp like David and invent your own musical instruments.

There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme.

“Look,” He replied, “I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you may bake your bread over that.”

Tragedy--as also Comedy--was at first mere improvisation.

A church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling. . . . [We must] play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, and live by improvisation and experiment.

William Faulkner was once asked how he went about writing a book. His answer: "It's like building a chicken coop in a high wind. You grab any board or shingle flying by or loose on the ground and nail it down fast." Like becoming a pastor.

In short, we would discover, as we should already, that logic is in the eye of the logician. (For instance, here's an idea for theorists and logicians: if women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long? I leave further improvisation up to you.)

To invent something, all you need is imagination and a big pile of junk.

It takes three weeks to prepare a good ad-lib speech.

Shearing began to play his chords; they rolled out of the piano in great rich showers, you'd think the man wouldn't have time to line them up. They rolled and rolled like the sea.

There is spontaneity to my work.

Jazz is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country.