Keith Johnstone Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Keith Johnstone's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Playwright Keith Johnstone's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 46 quotes on this page collected since 1933! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
All quotes by Keith Johnstone: Children Imagination Theatre more...
  • 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. Many 'well-adjusted' adults are bitter, uncreative, frightened, unimaginative, and rather hostile people. Instead of assuming they were born that way, or that that's what being an adult entails, we might consider them as people damaged by their education and upbringing.

  • If it weren't for fear, I wouldn't have to teach you a damn thing

  • The problem's always been to deal with the fear.Cos the fear is pretty . . . it ruins everybody really.

    Ruins   Problem   Deals  
    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • In a normal education everything is designed to suppress spontaneity, but I wanted to develop it.

    Keith Johnstone (1981). “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre”, p.15, Routledge
  • Wherever you go it's the same fear. And the same protective devices. There is one big error I think and partly my fault which is that a lot of things are taught to beginners which you can cast off later on.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • Good improvisers seem telepathic; everything looks pre-arranged, This is because they accept all offers made—which is something no ‘normal’ person would do.

    Keith Johnstone (2012). “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre”, p.99, Routledge
  • I left my theatre the Loose Moose almost twenty years ago, and I hardly ever go back. Sometimes I go back to do a Mask class. They're doing more of this than I was doing when I left. Often it's the same improvisers but they're older. And now, they don't care if the theatre's full or not.

    Years   Class   Theatre  
    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • Trying to do better is trying to be better than you actually are, and I don't think you can do that.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • Enjoy things even when you’re screwing up.

    Enjoy  
  • If you believe you're good already, you don't need to do extra stuff to impress us. Your best work comes when you're absorbed; because then your ego is away.

    Believe   Ego   Needs  
  • Where if you're in a universe where you have to accept ideas, you'll never know if your partner wanted the garbage you're handing them. They have to take it.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • None of us really grow up. All we ever do is learn how to behave in public.

  • I'm not against work, I think work is great, I work a lot; but if you want to play, the consequences must not be important.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • The improvisation had to be in public, because you only get value playing to strangers.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • The best laughs are on the recognition of truth.

  • 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.

    Average   People   Trying  
    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • Suppose Mozart had tried to be original? It would have been like a man at the North Pole trying to walk north, and this is true of all of the rest of us. Striving after originality takes you far away from your true self, and makes your work mediocre.

    Men   Self   Trying  
    Keith Johnstone (2012). “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre”, p.88, Routledge
  • 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 (1981). “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre”, p.78, Routledge
  • 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.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • 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.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • 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 (2012). “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre”, p.92, Routledge
  • Don't come on to be funny - come on to solve problems.

    Problem   Solve  
  • If you have a good idea, open your mouth and say something else.

    Funny   Ideas   Ironic  
  • The improviser has to understand that his first skill lies in releasing his partner’s imagination.

    Keith Johnstone (1981). “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre”, p.93, Routledge
  • 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.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • I was crazy about silent comedy - in the old days, and crazy about Japanese movies.

    Crazy   Comedy   Silent  
    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • 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.

  • Light entertainment means it mustn't teach you anything.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
  • Good impro can make you laugh, we love it, but soon the content is forgotten. Good scenes from The Life Game stay with you always. They haunt you.

  • You can sort of trick people into being really good. Even if they didn't know anything.

    Source: actorsandperformers.com
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 46 quotes from the Playwright Keith Johnstone, starting from 1933! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!
    Keith Johnstone quotes about: Children Imagination Theatre