Performances Quotes - Page 28

• In 1949 there was a new thing called Television, to which my agency and advisers opposed as a performance medium.

  Loretta Young

  Agency, Television, Mediums

  7 Copy quote

• Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.

  John Zorn

  Mean, Preparation, Sound

  "Interview hits dissonant chord with John Zorn" by Lee Hildebrand, www.sfgate.com. August 26, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Performancism is the mindset that equates our identity and value directly with our performance and accomplishments.

  Tullian Tchividjian

  Accomplishment, Identity, Mindset

  6 Copy quote

• From this experience, I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came to the end of my life and realized that I'd spent every day watching for a man who would never come to me? What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realize I'd never really tasted the things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been, because I'd thought of nothing but the Chairman even while my life was drifting away from me. And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give.

  Arthur Golden

  Men, Giving, Dancer

  8 Copy quote

• I did not set out to be beloved and just, only strong." 'A King can be better than that," the Prince insisted. "And so we all begin, determined to better our fathers' performances, knowing we can change the very nature of humanity, make it better, cleaner. But then daggers strike in the night, and peasants revolt, and all manner of atrocities become a necessity as breakfast. Only Princes believe in the greater good. Kings know there is only Reign, and all things may be committed in its holy name.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Strong, Kings, Father

  4 Copy quote

• ...how can we live in the richest, most privileged country in the world, at the peak of its economic performance, and still hear the Republicans, and too many Democrats, that we cannot afford to provide a good education for every child, that we cannot afford to provide health security for all our citizens?

  Paul Wellstone

  Country, Children, Citizens

  Paul Wellstone (2001). “The Conscience of a Liberal: Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda”, p.7, Random House

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do the best you can. But I want to emphasize that it be the very best. We are too prone to be satisfied with mediocre performance. We are capable of doing so much better.

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Want, Mediocre, Satisfied

  4 Copy quote

• He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gauged his ability to love.

  Ann Patchett

  Opportunity, Tchaikovsky, True Life

  7 Copy quote

• Any excuse for non-performance, no matter how valid, weakens character.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Character, Matter, Excuse

  4 Copy quote

• He's lost something, some illusion I used to think was necessary to him. He's come to realize he too is human. Or is this a performance, for my benefit, to show me he's up-to-date? Maybe men shouldn't have been told about their own humanity. It's only made them uncomfortable. It's only made them trickier, slier, more evasive, harder to read.

  Margaret Atwood

  Men, Thinking, Humanity

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Sep 17, 2014

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Mr Darcy

  Jane Austen

  Imperfection, Attention, Darcy

  Jane Austen (1853). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.41

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weakness, let alone on something one cannot do at all.

  Peter Drucker

  Weakness, Persons

  Peter Drucker, Alan Kantrow, Rick Wartzman, Julia Kirby (2016). “Get the Right Things Done: The Drucker Collection (6 Items)”, p.11, Harvard Business Review Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre. In those areas a knowledge workers should not take on work, jobs and assignments. It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.

  Peter Drucker

  Jobs, Skills, Numbers

  Peter Drucker, Alan Kantrow, Rick Wartzman, Julia Kirby (2016). “Get the Right Things Done: The Drucker Collection (6 Items)”, p.12, Harvard Business Review Press

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• I had paid for my folly and, as a reward, was invited to take part in the nest builder’s performance piece. The script was great. ‘When I bleat here, do you want me to just bleat or to really let go and “bleat, bleat”?’ I asked. ‘I feel like “bleat, bleating,” but if Mother/Destroyer is going to be crawling through the birth canal of concertina wire, I don’t want to steal focus, you know what I mean?

  David Sedaris

  Letting Go, Mother, Mean

  4 Copy quote

• If I am ever put to death on the hook, expect a very human performance.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Hook, Humans, Ifs

  7 Copy quote

• The constant reprimands made me hyperconscious of my own performance, and so instead of getting rid of self, I had become embedded in the egoism I was supposed to transcend. Now I was beginning to understand that a silence that is not clamorous with vexation and worried self-regard can become part of the texture of your mind, can seep into you, moment by moment, and gradually change you.

  Karen Armstrong

  Self, Silence, Mind

  4 Copy quote

• I love the performance of a craft, whether it is modest or mean-spirited, yet I walk away when discussions of it begin - as if one should ask a gravedigger what brand of shovel he uses or whether he prefers to work at noon or in moonlight. I am interested only in the care taken, and those secret rehearsals behind it. Even if I do not understand fully what is taking place.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Taken, Mean, Secret

  Michael Ondaatje (2010). “Divisadero”, p.134, Bloomsbury Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Responsibilites and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgement, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value.

  William P. Young

  Expectations, Judgement, Guilt

  4 Copy quote

• ... the worst possible heritage to leave with children: high spiritual pretensions and low performance.

  D. A. Carson

  Spiritual, Children, Heritage

  D. A. Carson (1992). “A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers”, p.26, Baker Academic

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit.

  Daphne du Maurier

  Sleep, Break Through, Routine

  5 Copy quote

• Enjoying life is far superior to being graded on your performance in life.

  Wayne Dyer

  Spiritual, Enjoy Life, Life Is

  8 Copy quote

• Sometimes when I see a bad performance and people still clap... I wonder if they're clapping because they liked what they saw or because they're happy it's over?

  Kanye West

  People, Saws, Sometimes

  15 Copy quote

• 13.5 Mrs. Wolfe asks whether Mr. Iqbal expects her Susan to undertake compulsory headstands. 13.6 Mr. Iqbal infers that, considering Susan's academic performance and weight problems, a headstand regime might be desirable.

  Zadie Smith

  Weight Problems, Might, Academic

  Zadie Smith (2003). “White Teeth”, p.107, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• We all perform. It's what we do for each other all the time, deliberately or unintionally. It's a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognized as what we'd like to be.--PERFORMANCE

  Richard Avedon

  Way

  13 Copy quote

• In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its performance is the reason the world has people in it.

  Toni Morrison

  Ohio, People, World

  7 Copy quote