Quotes About Improvisation

All jazz comes from blues. Blues first.

'Boogie Chillen',' by John Lee Hooker - that is a riff.

In 'Boomerang,' they didn't have a script at all, they just told me to come up with some stuff.

When we did 'Boomerang,' which is one of my favorite scenes, the whole dinner scene was ad-libbed.

When you're bored, you get creative.

I wouldn't be interested in just doing a show that's mapped out and choreographed with a set list. That would've been boring so long ago it just wouldn't be any fun.

A lot of making TV is lightening in a bottle.

See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules.

When a play breaks down, yeah, I've been blessed with the ability to make plays.

With 'Trainwreck,' because it wasn't live and we could do more takes, I feel like we broke a lot.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble.

The music is fun. The big difference performing it live is that we might get a little more heated, not as subdued, we'll stretch things out more. It's how you stay fresh after such a long time in the business.

Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is real jazz. If there is such a thing as real jazz, The Lounge Lizards is real jazz, Henry Threadgill is real jazz, Bill Frisell is real jazz, you know?

Many, many years ago, I stood on the stage and told bad jokes and did Sophie Tucker as an impersonation, and nobody looked up; and suddenly, I looked down and said, 'Sir, I'm getting fed up with you. Either you watch, or I'm going to suck your neck,' or words to that effect, and suddenly people started to laugh.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.

At Second City and improvising at iO, you're creating a character in an instant. All of a sudden, you're creating this history and this past for your character, and you're discovering it while you're doing it, and that's part of the fun of it.

Growing up we used to put Saltines in a bowl with milk and dump a bunch of sugar on it and eat it as cereal.

The goal of serious musicians is to play outside of yourself. That's most likely with people who suggest things that are outside your musical experience.

We didn't have a television, so I grew up with books. This isn't to suggest I'm an intellectual, but I do read a lot because part of acting is an exploration of literature.

I did standup for a lot of years, too, but when you come out as a standup, you get the feeling from a crowd - it's a kind of a 'make me laugh' attitude. But when you come out as an improvisor, they realize that they're suggesting everything you do. So they're already invested in the scene, and they actually want it to work.

We've always said Psychic TV's music is the sum total of who's in it at the time.

'Saturday Night Live' was actually started with a show that Lorne Michaels and I did at a summer camp called Timberlane in Ontario when we were 14 and 15. We would do an improvisational show with music, comedy and acting.

Most of the time, particularly with this record, 'The Light of the Sun,' I really just been standing in front of a microphone and blacking out musically, you know. I'd come back a couple hours later and there's six songs from beginning to end, you know? I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know how I'm going to say it.