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Keith Johnstone

Keith Johnstone Quotes

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Famous Keith Johnstone Quotes

“This ploy is supposed to make the onlookers have sympathy with them if they ‘fail’ and it’s expected to bring greater rewards if they ‘win’. Actually this down-in-the-mouth attitude almost guarantees failure, and makes everyone fed up with them. No one has sympathy with an adult who takes such as attitude, but when they are children it probably worked.”

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Book:Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
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“People with dull lives often think that their lives are dull by chance. In reality, everyone chooses more or less what kind of events will happen to them by their conscious patterns of blocking and yielding. A student objected to this view by saying, 'But you don't choose your life. Sometimes, you are at the mercy of people who push you around.' I said, 'Do you avoid such people?' 'Oh!' she said, 'I see what you mean.”

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Book:Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
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“It was largely my interest in art that had destroyed any life in the world around me. I'd learned perspective, and about balance, and composition. It was as if I'd learned to redesign everything, to reshape it so I saw what OUGHT to be there, which of course is much inferior to what IS there. The dullness was not an inevitable consequence of age, but of education.”

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Book:Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
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“In my school, the library was forbidden. I was accused of turning on the radiator so that the [class]room was uninhabitable and the ceiling came down below; I'm pretty sure I didn't do it. But then we were moved to the library. And there was a really boring history thing, about the Spanish Armada: how could you make that boring?!So I reached my hand out, and slid a book off to read under the desk, and it opened at King Lear Act Four Scene Six. I was astounded. I'd never seen language like it. I was awestruck. I think that may be one reason why I got involved in theatre.”

ThinkingMayBookReasonHandsSchoolLanguageRoomsClassFourKingsInvolvedSceneSixMovedLibraryBoringTheatreReason WhyDesksForbiddenAccusedCeilingsLearAstoundedAwestruck
Author:Keith Johnstone
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“I mean, in the foreword to Impro in Denmark is by Søren Iversen, who I taught long ago, he was a Danish director, after he left. He said he'd read about [Eugeny] Vakhtangov. I'm a fan of his. When he heard that Vakhtangov had lots of tricks, he thought this was very bad. But when he came to be my student, he realised it was very good to have a lot of tricks. You saw some this morning.”

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Author:Keith Johnstone
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“As I grew up, everything started getting grey and dull. I could still remember the amazing intensity of the world I'd lived in as a child, but I thought the dulling of perception was an inevitable consequence of age - just as a lens of the eye is bound gradually to dim. I didn't understand that clarity is in the mind.”

WorldMindChildrenStillsEyeAgeRememberGrewPerceptionGrew UpConsequenceBoundsClarityInevitableDullIntensityGreyLenses
Book:Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
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“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.”

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Author:Keith Johnstone
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“At school any spontaneous act was likely to get me into trouble. I learned never to act on impulse, and that whatever came into my mind first should be rejected in favour of better ideas. I learned that my imagination Wasn’t ‘good’ enough. I learned that the first idea was unsatisfactory because it was (1) psychotic; (2) obscene; (3) unoriginal. The truth is that the best ideas are often psychotic, obscene and unoriginal.”

ShouldMindFirstsIdeasEnoughSchoolImaginationTroubleTruth IsImpulseGood EnoughRejectedSpontaneousFavourMy ImaginationObscenePsychotic
Book:Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
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“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.”

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Book:Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
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