Ad Lib Quotes & Sayings

Seventy years of ad-lib material, and I am speechless. — Bob Hope

Interestingly, the British government announced a few weeks ago that they were going to introduce 500 educational targets for preschool children. And teachers complained that "when are the children going to have time to play?" Well, they're not supposed to play, because play is a right-brain, ad-lib, creative pursuit. The idiot politicians who are introducing it don't understand this, but the shadow-people from which it is generated certainly do. They want to stimulate the left brain as early as possible. — David Icke

I don't know why people think I'm this ad-lib dude. — Mike Epps

In the year and a half I was on SNL, I never saw anybody ad lib anything. For a very good reason - the director cut according to the script. So, if you ad libbed, you'd be off mike and off camera. — Harry Shearer

You might start a new religion yourself, with the creed: 'There is no one so clever as Hercule Poirot, Amen, D. C. Repeat ad lib.'! — Agatha Christie

A man came up to me at a party and asked if I wanted to be in his video game. I of course said yes. And then it turned out it was 'Assassin's Creed', so that was great. They let me ad lib a lot and mess about and be very snarky indeed, and I'm thrilled by the success of all their hard work. — Danny Wallace

I can't ad-lib, or not for long. — Nick Nolte

I ad lib most of my dialogue. If I did remember my lines, it would be too bad for me. — W.C. Fields

One thing that's unique to 'Uncharted' is something called 'chasing picture,' where Naughty Dog run a section of gameplay and I'm allowed to ad-lib over it. We call it 'panning for gold.' — Nolan North

Harris said, however, that the river would suit him to a "T." I don't know what a "T" is (except a sixpenny one, which includes bread-and- butter and cake AD LIB., and is cheap at the price, if you haven't had any dinner). It seems to suit everybody, however, which is greatly to its credit. — Jerome K. Jerome

The pledge drive has everything going against it as broadcasting. It's repetitive. It's ad-libbed by people who can't ad-lib. It's about asking for money, which is something nobody wants to hear, even from their own relatives. — Ira Glass

When I joined WKRC, they were very concerned over my ability to ad lib or speak extemporaneously, which was an unknown factor up until that point. — Waite Hoyt

Improv is not something I had a lot of experience with, because for a long time, my only experience in front of a camera was all television, which is pretty rigid script-wise, except for the occasional scene where you toss in an ad-lib just to elongate something. — Gary Cole

Bob Hope was totally regimented. I go in and say a line like, 'Hi Bob' and I'd have to do it five times, and then Bob would take me to the writers to say the line different ways. He wouldn't let me ad-lib. — Don Rickles

Sometimes I try to improve the language, the lines, or the delivery, but I don't ad-lib because I think that makes it really hard for everybody else involved. — Harrison Ford

You have to grab moments when they happen. I like to improvise and ad lib. — Denzel Washington

Eddie Izzard is doing his show in French ... Will he be able to fake ad-lib as well in other languages? He's been speaking French for a while now, but he's talking about doing his act in German. Haven't the German people suffered enough? — Andy Kindler

Can't nobody do what Fetty Wap does. So when I go to the studio, it may be four to five hours max, probably three days out the week. I used to go to the studio for 10 to 15 hours, and I would do five to 10 songs. Now I go for four to five hours and I do, like, 15 to 20 songs. I'm an ad lib guy. Most people know me for my ad libs. — Fetty Wap

Now I can broadcast to an audience of several million people on the 'Today' programme. I can talk about the day's news. But on radio, believe it or not, we have notes and scripts. And while we might ad lib the odd wryly amusing asides, they come at the frequency of a suburban bus. About one every 90 minutes. — Evan Davis

A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It's all about them. They have mastered the Star Wars or Star Trek universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies. Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to say to each other, which is so much safer than having to ad lib it. Your fannish obsession is your beard. If you know absolutely all the trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having to know anything about anything else. That's why it's excruciatingly boring to talk to such people: They're always asking you questions they know the answer to. — Roger Ebert

It takes three weeks to prepare a good ad-lib speech. — Mark Twain

Legal dialogue is awesome, but you can't ad lib. It's much more fun to be looser and say things like, 'Can I work in a Han Solo reference?' I'm a 'Star Wars' freak. — Diane Neal

I don't worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey. — Mahalia Jackson

I ad lib. I've gotta bring my own into it. — Terrence Howard

We're all about trying to play better every night, not just singing hit songs ... we ad lib, and every night there's jamming .. it's almost like the Grateful Dead meets Buck Owens some nights, because we'll go off on little adventures and sometimes we do crash the bus! ... — Brad Paisley

We haven't had a strategic free kick all night. No one's knocked over attackers ad-lib. — Ron Atkinson

One does odd things. You see, when one's young one doesn't feel part of it yet, the human condition; one does things because they are not "for good"; one thinks everything is a rehearsal - to be repeated ad lib, to be put right when the curtain goes up in earnest. One day you know that the curtain was up all the time. That was the performance. — Sybille Bedford

We'd dub the one that came off best into the final transcription. It gave us a chance to ad lib as much as we wanted, knowing that excess ad libbing could be sliced from the final product. — Bing Crosby

Darkwing Duck and Don Karnage are the most fun to do, because they're both probably the closest to me - I kinda improvise a lot of them, kinda ad lib. — Jim Cummings

Bernard: ... By the way, Valentina, do you want credit? - 'the game book recently discovered by.'?
Valentine: It was never lost, Bernard.
Bernard: 'As recently pointed out by.' I don't normally like giving credit where it's due, but with scholarly articles as with divorce, there is a certain cachet in citing a member of the aristocracy. I'll pop it in ad lib for the lecture, and give you a mention in the press release. How's that?
Valentine: Very kind. — Tom Stoppard

The English language is rather like a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib. — Robert Burchfield

Steve Carell is the most spectacular ad-lib improviser ever. And just doing a scene with him, it's just one incredible topping himself on every take. — Lucy Punch

I'm not even really a joke-teller. I can do ad-lib and banter, but I don't do jokes. — Bruce Forsyth

No one could ad lib like Peter. You would think that it was all scripted, he was so poetic, but it wasn't. — Barbara Walters