A Quote by Stephen Colbert

You are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what's going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say 'yes.' And if you're lucky, you'll find people who will say 'yes' back.

Stephen Colbert

Quote Topics

About Back Before Control Find Going Greatest Happen Idea Improvisation Lucky Never No Idea Often People Places Say Script Seen Start Will Yes

Quote Author

Stephen Colbert
American - Comedian
Born: May 13, 1964

And in Improvisation there is one hard and fast rule, and that rule is known as "Yes And." The term YES AND: to say yes, and not just yes, but to add information. In the adding of information you don't negate the other persons idea - but you build on it.

Maya Rudolph

I moved to Chicago in the early 1990s and I studied improvisation there. I learned some rules that I try to apply still today: Listen. Say yes. Live in the moment. Make sure you play with people who have your back. Make big choices early and often. Don't start a scene where two people are talking about jumping out of a plane. Start the scene having already jumped. If you're scared, look into your partner's eyes — you will feel better.

Amy Poehler

When Lars Von Trier calls me, I say yes without reading the script because often the script hasn't been written yet, and if Fincher called me again, I'd say yes without reading the script, too.

Stellan Skarsgard

Find a way to say “Yes” to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learning a new language, picking up a new sport. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job. Yes is how you find your spouse, and even your kids.

Eric Schmidt

From '86 until the summer of last year, wherever I went, people would say, You would have made a great James Bond! Weren't you going to be James Bond? You should have been, you could have been, you may have been. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was like unfinished business in my life. I couldn't say no to it this time around.

Pierce Brosnan

I've never done a big series like 'Game of Thrones' before. All I knew was that it was HBO, and I'd seen what they had done with 'The Sopranos' and 'The Wire.' But when I started reading the script, it was a no-brainer. Yes, yes, yes. Gold. Every time I turned the page.

Liam Cunningham

Find a way to say yes to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learning a new language, picking up a new sport. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it's a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means that you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference in your life. Yes lets you stand out in a crowd, be the optimist, to stay positive, be the one everyone comes to. Yes is what keeps us all young.

Eric Schmidt

Try to never say 'yes' on the phone; instead, say, 'I'll get back to you.' When you're actually speaking to someone, the desire to be accommodating is very strong, and can lead you to say 'yes' without enough consideration.

Gretchen Rubin

I never expected to have any kind of film career, to be honest. It was all a bit of a surprise. But I was in a big hit play on Broadway. America, as many people will say, says yes more often than we do. And so I was suddenly surrounded by people saying yes. But I was aware that was 'cause of what I was in. It had a big impact.

Alan Rickman

You find, as the years go on and you have some success, people kind of start to say yes when they should say no.

Benji Madden

There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House.

Herman Melville

I say to people that it's a choice that we make every day in our lives. Doesn't matter what you're going through. You don't have to be going through what I went through. But it's whether you decide to get up or stay down, whether you say 'yes' or whether you say 'no' to life. Basically, I decided to say, 'Yes.'

Janine Shepherd

I wonder if people will ever say, 'Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring.' And they'll say 'Yes, that's one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn't he, Dad?' 'Yes, my boy, the most famousest of hobbits. And that's saying a lot.'

J. R. R. Tolkien

Did you know you can take your bus anywhere you want to go? Say yes three times with me. Yes, yes, yes. You can take it to the movies, the beach or the North Pole. Just say where you want to go and believe that it will be so. Because every journey and ride begins with a desire to go somewhere and do something and if you have a desire then you also have the power to make it happen.

Jon Gordon

Say "Yes" to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say "Yes" to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say "Yes" to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia.