"Improvisation is a tool for investigating reality. What is the reality we are investigating? Let me approach that question through a couple of stories. When I was writing Free Play, I was visiting a dear friend of mine, Michael Stulbarg, who was a pulmonologist in San Francisco. He was what we used to call a left-brain person, very logical and scientific. I asked him, as a doctor, what do improvisation and creativity mean to you? Without hesitation, he answered: it means actually seeing the patient who is in front of you, rather than a textbook case or a diagnosis you’ve been taught. Any doctor who is in practice, and who really practices their practice, knows that each person is absolutely individual and cannot be entirely categorized except in terms of their own situation. To clearly see that uniqueness, to see another human being, is a remarkable thing. And that ability is at the core of improvisation."

Stephen Nachmanovitch