33 Quotes by Keith Johnstone

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.

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.

Laughter is a whip that keeps us in line. It's horrible to be laughed at against your will. Either you suppress unwelcome laughter or you start controlling it.

Those who say yes are rewarded by the adventures they have.

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. Those who say 'no' are rewarded by the safety they attain.

My feeling is that a good teacher can get results using any method, and that a bad teacher can wreck any method.

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

The mime must first of all be aware of this boundless contact with things. There is no insulating layer of air between the man and the outside world. Any man who moves causes ripples in the ambient word in the same way a fish does when it moves in the water.

My feeling is that sanity is actually a pretence, a way we learn to behave. We keep this pretence up because we don't want to be rejected by other people—and being classified insane is to be shut out of the group in a very complete way.