Quote

I see a great lack of stories around. I bought six literary magazines and looked through them to see what people were doing. There wasn't a story in them. They were all about how poetic the feelings of the author were.

Keith Johnstone

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Keith Johnstone
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: February 22
Actor
Dramaturge
Film Director
Improviser
Playwright
Theatrical Director
University Teacher
Devonshire
Stories
Magazines
Great
Six
People
Lack
Looked
Wasn
Poetic
Story
Literary
Feelings
Bought
Around
Author

More quotes by Keith Johnstone

Image
I was crazy about silent comedy - in the old days, and crazy about Japanese movies.
Keith Johnstone
Image
If you have a good idea, open your mouth and say something else.
Keith Johnstone
Image
Every theatre worth anything has somebody in the middle of it who is driving it like Joan Littlewood with her theatre.
Keith Johnstone
Image
There are people who prefer to say ‘Yes’, and there are people who prefer to say ‘No’. Those who say ‘Yes’ are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who say ‘No’ are rewarded by the safety they attain.
Keith Johnstone
Image
Don't come on to be funny - come on to solve problems.
Keith Johnstone
Image
If people had no fear, you'd hardly need to have to teach them. It's the fear that screws everything up.
Keith Johnstone
Image
I think my brain is much more intelligent than I am...so I tend to trust it.
Keith Johnstone
Image
My feeling is the moment the theatre is not full you have to do something else. But most people somehow think 'If we did it better, they would come'. No. They don't come.
Keith Johnstone
Image
In a scene [where the improvisers must interact] without the letter S, the audience is waiting for you to lose - so they can laugh at you. Don't try to win.
Keith Johnstone
Image
Imagination is as effortless as perception, unless we think it might be ‘wrong’, which is what our education encourages us to believe.
Keith Johnstone
Image
In life most of us are highly skilled at suppressing action. Bad improvisers block action often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.
Keith Johnstone
Image
Trying to do better is trying to be better than you actually are, and I don't think you can do that.
Keith Johnstone
Image
Most people I meet are secretly convinced that they’re a little crazier than the average person. People understand the energy necessary to maintain their own shields, but not the energy expended by other people. They understand that their own sanity is a performance, but when confronted by other people they confuse the person with the role.
Keith Johnstone
Image
The improviser has to understand that his first skill lies in releasing his partner’s imagination.
Keith Johnstone
Image
The best laughs are on the recognition of truth.
Keith Johnstone
Image
I tell people not to do their best. I don't know when that started. Quite a while ago. Because I . . . when they're doing their best I don't get their best. So I try to persuade them to be average. Because if you're wonderful and you're average, you're still wonderful. If you're a bad improviser and you're average, you're what you are.
Keith Johnstone
Image
The improvisation had to be in public, because you only get value playing to strangers.
Keith Johnstone
Image
I don't even think you should tell the audience you're improvising. It's like an apology in case it's bad : 'we're just making it up' If the improv isn't better than the rehearsed stuff, then you should just rehearse it.
Keith Johnstone
Image
Many teachers think of children as immature adults. It might lead to better and more 'respectful' teaching, if we thought of adults as atrophied children.
Keith Johnstone
Image
Some people in this life think they're worth something, or that they have a right to things. I never thought I had a right to anything 'cause of the way I was broken as a child. And therefore I was sort of floating around and would get sucked into things.
Keith Johnstone