Indeed, if the pretentious books produced in these troubled years by men without logical insight or a sense of logical obligation were gathered into a heap and burned, they would thus produce, in the form of a bright bonfire the only light they are qualified to give.

If human beings are by nature civilization-builders, or “time-binders,” and if all time-binders, or civilization-builders, are both inheritors from the toil of bygone generations and trustees for the generations to come, then we humans stand in the double relationship—debtors of the dead, trustees of the unborn—thus uniting past, present and future in one living, growing reality.

There is no art without order. There is no art without structure. Art is not the moment of free expression—anybody can do that. That's just masturbation and free association and therapeutic purging. There's no art in that. Where the art comes in is in the control, in taking this material that could spew off in any direction and imposing on it, or discovering within it or revealing, the inner order of this seemingly random, disordered, or unordered behavior.

Here we come across a tremendous fact; namely, that a language, any language, has at its bottom certain metaphysics, which ascribe, consciously or unconsciously, some sort of structure to this world. Our old mythologies ascribed an anthropomorphic structure to the world, and, of course, under such a delusion, the primitives built up a language to picture such a world […]

To study the strategy of conflict is to take the view that most conflict situations are essentially bargaining situations.

Conflict is the essence of drama.

If a scene fails because a player makes a wrong move, the whole group must share the blame if they didn't justify the move. Each improviser shares a small portion of responsibility for the piece on stage. They must focus their concentration on the work of the group—not the work of any individual.

Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become “stageworthy.”

No one need be told how indispensable it is to have true ideas—just concepts—correct notions—of the things with which we humans have to deal; everyone knows for example, that to mistake solids for surfaces or lines would wreck the science and art of geometry; anyone knows that to confuse fractions with whole numbers would wreck the science and art of arithmetic; everyone knows that to mistake vice for virtue would destroy the foundation of ethics; everyone knows that to mistake a desert mirage for a lake of fresh water does but lure the fainting traveler to dire disappointment or death.

Each science has to build a special terminology adapted to its own special purposes.

The language and attitudes of authoritarianism must be constantly scourged if the total personality is to emerge as a working unit. All words which shut doors, have emotional content or implication, attack the student-actor's personality, or keep a student slavishly dependent on a teacher's judgment are to be avoided.

It is certainly true that he who holds the power to define is our master, but it is also true that he who holds in mind an alternative definition can never quite be his slave.

If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules.

We're using human behavior to abstract from human behavior.

If character is defined as motive happening, it follows that uncovering motive is the key to discovering character.

Again, Tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities both of character and thought; for it is by these that we qualify actions themselves, and—thought and character—are the two natural causes from which actions spring, and on actions again all success or failure depends.

[A] number of isolated facts does not produce a science any more than a heap of bricks produces a house. The isolated facts must be put in order and brought into mutual structural relations in the form of some theory.

Common words do not have meanings—
Only people do.
And sometimes they don't either.

Any game worth playing is highly social and has a problem that needs solving within it—an objective point in which each individual must become involved, whether it be to reach a goal or to flip a chip into a glass. There must be group agreement on the rules of the game and group interaction moving towards the objective if the game is to be played.

What is achieved in blaming a man for being selfish and greedy if he acts under the influence of a social environment and education which teach him that he is an animal and that selfishness and greediness are of the essence of his nature?

When two dynamite trucks meet on a road wide enough for one, who backs up?

As our lives are lived entirely on the un-speakable level, which includes not only scientific objects and ordinary objects, but, also, actions, functions, processes, performances, feelings, 'emotions' [etc.], this level is obviously first in importance, and the verbal level, which is only auxiliary, comes next in importance.

[A]n idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.

People can often concert their intentions or expectations with others if each knows that the other is trying to do the same. Most situations—perhaps every situation for people who are practiced at this kind of game—provide some clue for coordinating behavior, some focal point for each person's expectation of what the other expects him to expect to be expected to do."

What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire.

Desire is the grassfire drinking gasoline

Motive identifies character. A character acts because she wants; what she wants determines what she does.

Character can be defined as an individual locus of motives, that is, a centering of wants. Character is motive happening.

The actor's business is to justify.

The master weaver incorporated the mistakes of his students into a larger pattern.

I was eager to continue the work we had started in Toronto. [Charna] Halpern and [Del] Close allowed me to teach workshops at the Improv Olympic. We called those early workshops long-form improvisation: beyond games, and we defined long-form as sustaining a character for an extended period of time.

The term long-form has come to suggest many different types of improvisation, but even then the phrase changed and came to mean a performance where the lights were not taken down during the show—unlike the more traditional revue styles, which were comprised of short scenes and blackouts.

Drivers manoeuvring in heavy traffic are playing a driving game. Bargain-hunters bidding on eBay are playing an auctioning game. A firm and a union negotiating next year's wage are playing a bargaining game. When opposing candidates choose their platform in an election, they are playing a political game. The owner of a grocery store deciding today's price for corn flakes is playing an economic game. In brief, a game is being played whenever human beings interact.

With some reservations but mostly with conviction, I use the word narrative as a synonym for god, with a small g. I know it is risky to do so, not only because the word god, having an aura of sacredness, is not to be used lightly, but also because it calls to mind a fixed figure or image. But it is the purpose of such figures or images to direct one's mind to an idea and, more to my point, to a story—not any kind of story, but one that tells of origins and envisions a future, a story that constructs ideas, prescribes rules of conduct, provides a source of authority, and, above all, gives a sense of continuity and purpose. A god, in the sense I am using the word, is the name of a great narrative, one that has sufficient credibility, complexity, and symbolic power to enable one to organize one's life around it.

The objective upon which the player must constantly focus and towards which every action must be directed provokes spontaneity.

We would like to see the schools go into the anti-entropy business. [T]he purpose is to subvert attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions that foster chaos and uselessness.

Art is possible by committee. Basically all you need is structure, traffic patterns, game rules, and some kind of image of what it is you want to do.

It is in the interests of any human group to have its members working together toward the achievement of common goals. However, in many social interactions the participants begin with requirements and demands that are unacceptable to one another. Thus the society must arrange to have these initial, incompatible desires set aside for the sake of socially beneficial cooperation. This is accomplished through procedures that promote compromise. Mutual concession is one important such procedure.

Take a single suggestion and improvise for about half an hour. That's long form.

Del [Close] said that we were not eliminating short-form, we were just creating a meta-game that ate short-form games. Long-form improvisation was born.

If the game rules of improvisation are followed, the players will “win” on stage. And if they play the game well, then everybody wins.

Man's achievements rest upon the use of symbols. For this reason, we must consider ourselves as a symbolic, semantic class of life, and those who rule the symbols, rule us.

If he contend, as sometimes he will contend, that he has defined all of his terms and proved all of his propositions, then either he is a performer of logical miracles or he is an ass; and, as you know, logical miracles are impossible.