Sonny Rollins Quotes

Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.

I never work out my leads. Everything I do is usually totally spontaneous. If someone says, 'That was good; play that again,' I'm not able to do it.

I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote 'Search.' There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove.

Sometimes I think your intellect can get in your way as an actor or an artist. When you come from a world of improv and comedy, you're able to let it flicker and fall out.

I don't have a process; I just feel it. My book on acting would be very short.

I love flying by the seat of my pants, going at something instinctually.

I think I'm true to myself - you hear that actors have like plans. I'm gonna do this type of movie, then I'm gonna play this kind of character, and that'll get me from A to B. I've never done that. I honestly just follow my gut and I don't think you can go wrong with that.

You're at your best when you don't know what you're doing.

You can't write a script in your mind and then force yourself to follow it. You have to let yourself be.

Milton, of all people, gave the most perfect definition of the state of mind required to play jazz: ' with wanton heed and giddy cunning.' That's how you play jazz.

People go, 'What do you want to do?' What do you want to do? What are you feeling? Going into a shoot not fully knowing what I want to do—that excitement, that thing that happens, is just so powerful and makes such great pictures.

I rarely feel the desire to reread a scene the day before the shooting. Sometimes I arrive at the place where the work is to be done and I do not even know what I am going to shoot. This is the system I prefer: to arrive at the moment when shooting is about to begin, absolutely unprepared, virgin. I often ask to be left alone on the spot for fifteen minutes or half an hour and I let my thoughts wander freely.

I always want my mouth to be like two steps ahead of my brain and I want my hands to move without thinking. I want to be able to dive into my computer or use my controllers without having to be, like, "Hmm, what would be a good choice here?" You just want music to happen like the same way the sweat's rolling off my face.

I don't plan. I don't think, 'I have to do this kind of part 'cause I've done that kind of part.' I'm not a very good planner.

When it's time to make music, that's about getting lost for me. To be a control freak is not half as good as being a freak who's casually in control. You're feeling around in the dark for something that feels good.

I no have education. I have inspiration. If I was educated, I would be a damn fool.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.

Most songs I write are spur-of-the-moment-type things. I have to be spontaneous. If not, songwriting can bore me. There is no pre-design or idea of what I am going to do when I go into the studio. It's all like that for me. I could go in and write two or three songs in an eight-hour session. You can't over-think songs. You just can't.

I don't follow any system. All the laws you can lay down are only so many props to be cast aside when the hour of creation arrives.

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.

My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.

There's actually something interesting about having no rehearsal time - you have to just walk in and go with your gut, which is exciting.

I have always moved by intuition alone. I have no system, literary or political. I have no guiding political idea.

I write and draw from the gut. I often don't know what my stories are about until they're done.