Quotes and Sayings about Performance

 

 

"There's got to be a backbone, there's got to be a skeleton to the whole way I perform, but you never want to hit the same note twice during a performance, I think. I think it's always got to be fresh so it doesn't bore me, and I always want to go out on edge."
- Casey Abrams
(Related: Performance, Want)

"The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways."
- Ansel Adams
(Related: Negative, Performance)

"The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance."
- Ansel Adams
(Related: Negative, Performance)

"My first impression when I made it through was 'Good, because I'm going to prove to you that I deserve to be here', because they told me that sometimes I lack confidence in my performance and sometimes I'm not as consistent as they'd like me to be."
- Naima Adedapo
(Related: Impression, Performance, Confidence, First)

"When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression."
- Casey Affleck
(Related: Idea, Performance, Actor, Expression, Trying)

"When we get the final hardware, the performance is just going to skyrocket."
- J Allard
(Related: Performance, Hardware)

"Performance art is about joy, about making something that's so full of kind of a wild joy that you really can't put into words."
- Laurie Anderson
(Related: Art, Performance, Joy, Words)

"The thing that's characteristic of my performance is that I literally do drag the whole studio onto the stage."
- Laurie Anderson
(Related: Performance)

"What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions."
- Aristotle
(Related: Character, Performance, Virtue, Actions)

"I used to watch the world as if it was a performance and I would realize that certain things that people did moved me, and certain things didn't move me, and I tried to analyze, even at that age, six and seven and eight, why I was moved by certain things they did."
- Alan Arkin
(Related: Age, People, Performance, World)

"Sometimes when I see a performance that really takes me, I struggle. How can I express this to this person, I want this person to know how I felt. I want to get this across, and it's not very easy."
- John Astin
(Related: Performance, Struggle, Want)

"Well, I think In Love and War, which had a wonderful performance by Sandy, Sandra Bullock, who the authorities and, the supposed authorities, in cinema didn't want to know about."
- Richard Attenborough
(Related: Love, War, Performance, Cinema, Want)

"David has asked me, a number of people have asked me and said, What performance do you like best or what's the best film you've made and so on and I don't really have any hesitation that the film I'm least embarrassed by and ashamed of or uneasy about is Shadowlands."
- Richard Attenborough
(Related: People, Performance, Film, Hesitation)

"An acre of performance is worth a whole world of promise."
- Red Auerbach
(Related: Performance, Promise, World, Worth)

"I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media."
- Milton Babbitt
(Related: Music, Performance, Media, Public, Service, World)

"What comprises good performance? The ability through singing or playing to make the ear conscious of the true content and affect of a composition."
- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
(Related: Performance, Ability, Content, Singing)

"I always wanted, and still aspire, to be something more than just one thing, just one performance."
- Kevin Bacon
(Related: Performance)

"Lots of people I know have bootlegged tapes of performances and if they play it I will be transported back sometimes with happiness, sometimes with horror."
- Chris Bailey
(Related: Happiness, People, Horror, Play, Will)

"I always think that a director who knows about the technical side, but cares about the acting performances and casting as well, is ahead of the game."
- Bob Balaban
(Related: Acting)

"You have actors who begin at a certain young age and there's very little change in their technique and the depth of their performances; they're the same 30 years later."
- Alec Baldwin
(Related: Age, Change, Actors, Years)

"Look at the product pipeline, look at the fantastic financial results we've had for the last five years. You only get that kind of performance on the innovation side, on the financial side, if you're really listening and reacting to the best ideas of the people we have."
- Steve Ballmer
(Related: People, Ideas, Financial, Performance, Innovation, Listening, Results, Years)

"Some quality performances and movies have a chance to be rewarded, but it's not like it's a bible."
- Javier Bardem
(Related: Movies, Quality, Bible, Chance)

"What does my performance have to do with Russell Crowe's? Nothing. If I play Gladiator and we all play Gladiator with Ridley Scott in the same amount of time, maybe we have a chance to see who did it best."
- Javier Bardem
(Related: Time, Performance, Chance, Nothing, Play)

"People tend to remember my performances, not me."
- Ellen Barkin
(Related: People)

"I know that I'm never as good or bad as any single performance. I've never believed my critics or my worshippers, and I've always been able to leave the game at the arena."
- Charles Barkley
(Related: Performance)

"I know I'm never as good or bad as one single performance. I've never believed in my critics or my worshippers, and I've always been able to leave the game at the arena."
- Charles Barkley
(Related: Performance)

"Royalties are not how most writers or musicians make their living. Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales."
- John Perry Barlow
(Related: Performance, Living, Musicians, Sales, Writers)

"It's such a joy to work with different ensembles and create a collaboration. Rehearsing and building a performance is very interesting for me."
- Cecilia Bartoli
(Related: Work, Performance, Building, Collaboration, Joy)

"Reading should be a repeat performance."
- John Barton
(Related: Performance, Reading)

"China has legally purchased high performance computers, advanced machine tools, and semiconductor-manufacturing equipment from several American companies."
- Charles Foster Bass
(Related: Computers, Performance, American, Machine, Tools)

"An emotional performance is usually more instinctive to an actor."
- Alan Bates
(Related: Performance, Actor)

"A lawyer's performance in the courtroom is responsible for about 25 percent of the outcome; the remaining 75 percent depends on the facts."
- Melvin Belli
(Related: Performance, Facts)

"I think the lawyers are such incredible actors. Can you imagine the performance they have to do every day?"
- Monica Bellucci
(Related: Performance, Actors, Day, Lawyers)

"Debra Winger doesn't let anything interfere with her performance, which is the way it should be."
- Tom Berenger
(Related: Performance)

"Quite a few operas are still being commissioned around the world, although nothing apart from audience popularity can ensure more than a few performances."
- Bruce Beresford
(Related: Being, Nothing, Popularity, World)

"I don't rehearse films as much as opera or theatre. When I began directing films I thought a long rehearsal was a good idea. Experience showed me that the best performance was often left in a rehearsal room."
- Bruce Beresford
(Related: Experience, Thought, Idea, Performance, Opera, Theatre)

"Wal-Mart hires average people but squeezes above average performance and results out of them."
- Michael Bergdahl
(Related: People, Performance, Results)

"I think these awards are always nice for a player but they also reflect well on the club. It shows that Arsenal's performance have been noted all around the world and it helps by having so many good players around me."
- Dennis Bergkamp
(Related: Performance, Awards, World)

"Inside was the second LP album of a comedian's performance before an audience."
- Shelley Berman
(Related: Performance)

"The Steve Allen Sunday night show had the right to two options after my first performance."
- Shelley Berman
(Related: Performance, First, Night, Options, Right)

"The most memorable performance was my appearance in concert in Carnegie Hall. The first standup to do so."
- Shelley Berman
(Related: Performance, Appearance, First)

"I like the energy of live performance."
- Sandra Bernhard
(Related: Performance, Energy)

"Negative feedback effected amplifier performance significantly."
- Harold Stephen Black
(Related: Negative, Performance)

"Before every performance, I think I am about to keel over."
- Brenda Blethyn
(Related: Performance)

"The only thing you owe the public is a good performance."
- Humphrey Bogart
(Related: Performance, Public)

"All you owe the public is a good performance."
- Humphrey Bogart
(Related: Performance, Public)

"My performances have finally caught up with my ego."
- Ato Boldon
(Related: Ego)

"I have a chef who makes sure that I'm getting the right amounts of carbs, proteins and fats throughout the day to keep me at my max performance level."
- Barry Bonds
(Related: Performance, Day, Right)

"We have to have great pitching performances from our guys, and we have to take it from there."
- Bobby Bonilla
"I've always wanted to stay involved with young people. I never bought into the idea that entertainers owe nothing to their audience except a good performance."
- Pat Boone
(Related: People, Idea, Performance, Nothing)

"Actors should be overheard, not listened to, and the audience is 50 percent of the performance."
- Shirley Booth
(Related: Performance, Actors)

"I was driven to give the best possible performance I could based on the material that was given to me and that material was documentary footage of the President speaking to people."
- Timothy Bottoms
(Related: People, Performance, President)

"People should be judged on the basis of their performance, not nationality, personality, education, or personal traits and skills."
- Marvin Bower
(Related: Education, People, Performance, Nationality, Personality)

"Performance art can be produced in a coffee house setting."
- Jack Bowman
(Related: Art, Performance, Coffee)

"Performance art can involve the audience with taste, smell and sounds not available with electronic media and not practical with conventional theater. This is due to the usually small audience."
- Jack Bowman
(Related: Art, Performance, Media, Taste, Theater)

"We're all so mauled by information, but it's recycled information. We need to shut it out. So, you've got to get bizarre. This is an artist's purpose - to break away from the recycled. Performance art can do that."
- Jack Bowman
(Related: Art, Performance, Purpose, Artist, Bizarre, Information)

"All good performance pieces have some philosophical validity. That's the difference between mere theater and performance art."
- Jack Bowman
(Related: Art, Performance, Difference, Theater, Validity)

"Performance art is the ultimate in creativity. Since it has so many possibilities at creativity, it's essence tends to become creativity."
- Jack Bowman
(Related: Art, Creativity, Performance, Possibilities)

"A performance art piece is unprecedented. It is difficult to censor since it has a good possibility of never being done before."
- Jack Bowman
(Related: Art, Performance, Possibility, Being)

"Drugs won't enhance your performance."
- Morgan Brittany
(Related: Performance, Drugs)

"Let your performance do the thinking."
- Charlotte Bronte
(Related: Performance, Thinking)

"My best kiss was on stage. Kelly Rowland from Destiny's Child gave me a really nice soft kiss on my lips during a performance on my birthday. It was amazing."
- Chris Brown
(Related: Birthday, Kiss, Performance, Destiny)

"What is a good performance? It lies in the hands and head of a performer... the shortest way between two people is not a straight line."
- Earle Brown
(Related: People, Performance, Lies)

"Dance every performance as if it were your last."
- Erik Bruhn
(Related: Dance, Performance)

"The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment."
- William Jennings Bryan
(Related: Government, Performance, Act, Duty, Enjoyment, Exercise, Rights, states, United, Will, Word)

"As I had collaborated with visual artists before whether on installations, on performance pieces, in the context of theatre works and as I had taught for a time in art colleges the idea of writing music in response to painting was not alien."
- Gavin Bryars
(Related: Art, Music, Time, Idea, Performance, Artists, Painting, Theatre, Writing)

"That's the only way to do it. Just like an actor. You can get a great performance if you do a bunch of takes and edit it. You find the moments and string them together."
- Lindsey Buckingham
(Related: Performance, Actor, Moments)

"Good performance is about the capacity to focus and concentrate."
- Betty Buckley
(Related: Performance, Focus)

"Instinct taught me 20 years ago to pace a song or a concert performance. That translates into pacing a story, pleasing a reading audience."
- Jimmy Buffett
(Related: Performance, Instinct, Reading, Song, Years)

"People often argue about this. Obviously one of the skills in performance is acting, and you can't expect every Romeo to really be in love with their Juliet!"
- Deborah Bull
(Related: Love, People, Performance, Acting)

"The perception is that baseball's players' union is protecting players to use steroids and other illegal performance-enhancing drugs."
- Jim Bunning
(Related: Perception, Performance, Baseball, Drugs)

"The United States have fulfilled in good faith all their treaty stipulations with the Indian tribes, and have in every other instance insisted upon a like performance of their obligations."
- Martin Van Buren
(Related: Faith, Performance, states, United)

"I think my expectations for myself are much more severe and much more direct. You can't work on a film for six years without being your own toughest critic. So you can't really be distracted by the expectations based on your previous performance."
- Ken Burns
(Related: Work, Performance, Being, Expectations, Film, Years)

"The candidates before you know that the IFP has set up a system of deployed IFP national and provincial leaders who are not only monitoring the performance of candidates during these elections but will also do so after these elections."
- Mangosuthu Buthelezi
(Related: Performance, Elections, Leaders, Will)

"That's what really makes great skating competitions. When you have two top skaters in good form giving superb performances."
- Dick Button
(Related: Giving)

"I accept that responsibility and ask only that I be judged by my performance as its chief executive."
- Jane Byrne
(Related: Performance, Responsibility)

"If all of us would require the same level of performance from ourselves as we expect from government, this city will forever be the city that works."
- Jane Byrne
(Related: Government, Performance, Will)

"As the director of an opera, it is my responsibility to unify the style of the particular performance, but one can certainly approach the piece from different points of view. That's what makes it interesting and keeps it alive."
- Sarah Caldwell
(Related: Performance, Opera, Responsibility, Style)

"We gave up on the idea of trying to make the record a good representation of the live performance."
- John Cale
(Related: Idea, Performance, Trying)

"You can lose in cinema too if you don't put on a good performance."
- Eric Cantona
(Related: Performance, Cinema)

"County government can be simplified greatly by reorganizing and consolidating some of the offices, making others appointive, and reducing salaries in keeping with the salaries paid by private business for the performance of similar duties."
- Arthur Capper
(Related: Business, Government, Performance)

"From protecting our natural resources to providing maritime security and national defense, the Coast Guard's duties are broad in scope, and the performance of those duties has never been more important."
- Russ Carnahan
(Related: Performance, Defense, Security)

"If you go on stage with the wrong attitude, or something in your performance is off, you can lose an audience in the first minute. That first minute is crucial."
- Allan Carr
(Related: Attitude, Performance, First, Wrong)

"Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news."
- John Le Carre
(Related: Truth, Performance, News, Public, Right, Secrecy)

"When the first big paycheque with 'Dumb And Dumber' hit, I went: 'Gosh, I wonder if this will affect my performance. Will I do a take and think, was that worth $7 million?' But that never happened. If anything, it made me rebel against that thing when people who get rich start playing it safe."
- Jim Carrey
(Related: People, Performance, First, Will, Wonder, Worth)

"Yes, I get a report from BMI about the frequency of performances, and it is very surprising. They played one of my most advanced pieces, and one of my most unusual ones on the radio."
- Elliott Carter
"From George Washington to George W. Bush, presidents have invoked God's name in the performance of their official duties."
- Linda Chavez
(Related: God, Performance, Name, Washington)

"Mutual fund managers are trapped in this rather deadly vicious circle: the more successful they are, the more money flows into their mutual fund. Then, it is more difficult for them to beat the market averages or even to match their own past performance."
- Ron Chernow
(Related: Money, Successful, Performance, Managers, Past)

"I got into the studio when I was thirteen. At the age of twelve I was doing public performances."
- Chingy
(Related: Age, Public)

"I performed adequately at school, but in comparison to my older brother, who set the record for the highest cumulative average for our high school, my performance was decidedly mediocre."
- Steven Chu
(Related: Brother, Performance, School)

"When you are new to the business, you think if you give a really bad performance, that's one they will print. You will be judged. You just have to be brave."
- Robbie Coltrane
(Related: Business, Performance, Will)

"Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance."
- James Bryant Conant
(Related: Life, Performance, Aristocracy, Excellence)

"That kind of piece, perhaps most recognizable because of Yoko Ono's similar work, built a bridge between performance art and music - and without raising any awkward social issues."
- Tony Conrad
(Related: Art, Music, Work, Performance)

"So what this is is us, our personalities refined down on to a stage performance. In other words, the way we play is the end product of the way we live - we live in the cities, you see."
- Alice Cooper
(Related: Performance, Cities, End, Play, Words)

"The real secret of magic lies in the performance."
- David Copperfield
(Related: Performance, Lies, Magic)

"New York State is upside down and backwards; high taxes and low performance. The New York State government was at one time a national model. Now, unfortunately, it's a national disgrace. Sometimes, the corruption in Albany could even make Boss Tweed blush."
- Andrew Cuomo
(Related: Government, Time, Boss, Performance, Blush, Corruption, Disgrace, Now, State, Taxes)

"One's performance is often heightened by the brilliance and generosity of other actors."
- Cyril Cusack
(Related: Performance, Actors, Generosity)

"There are all sorts of reasons why I don't do much work in the theatre, the main one being that after two performances I feel I've given all I can. I hate repetition, I really do. It's like asking a painter to paint he same picture every day of his life."
- Peter Cushing
(Related: Life, Work, Being, Day, Hate, Repetition, Theatre)

"Good acting is consistency of performance."
- Jim Dale
(Related: Consistency, Performance, Acting)

"I think it hurt my performance because I stopped being me. That won't ever happen again."
- Christopher Darden
(Related: Performance, Being, Hurt)

"I don't know why people are so surprised by my live performances. My approach is so simple; every song I sing, every story I tell, every move I make, must move the audience to laughter, tears or inspiration. Otherwise, why should I do it?"
- John Davidson
(Related: People, Inspiration, Laughter, Song, Tears)

"I don't see how they can with most of my pieces, but I think it's unfortunate that they can through familiarity with flashy performances of a great deal of other music."
- Peter Maxwell Davies
(Related: Music, Familiarity)

"It's about getting a more democratic Wales for the purpose of improving our economic performance, for improving the delivery of health care, for raising educational standards."
- Ron Davies
(Related: Health, Performance, Purpose, Care)

"They improve greatly, and sometimes I go and see the performances they do and I am consciously aware that there isn't enough work for the good dancers."
- Siobhan Davies
(Related: Work)

"Drawing is giving a performance; an artist is an actor who is not limited by the body, only by his ability and, perhaps, experience."
- Marc Davis
(Related: Experience, Performance, Ability, Actor, Artist, Body, Giving)

"The trouble with the performance poets is that they don't seem to have read anything. So there is not a real sense of the poetic tradition in their work."
- Peter Davison
(Related: Work, Performance, Poets, Sense, Tradition, Trouble)

"Second of all, I don't think Wall Street is doing what it's supposed to be doing, even after the shameful performance of the last two years. They're are not allocating capital."
- Howard Dean
(Related: Performance, Years)

"I don't think of Storefront Hitchcock or Stop Making Sense as documentaries, I think of them more as performance films."
- Jonathan Demme
(Related: Performance, Sense)

"I was always the kid in school who tried to get attention, not necessarily the class clown, but I'd do little unexpected performances."
- Leonardo DiCaprio
(Related: Attention, Class, School)

"If you take my performance or my understanding of the role and my appreciation for story and then dress it in CGI, that I guess becomes an action film."
- Vin Diesel
(Related: Action, Performance, Appreciation, Dress, Film, Understanding)

"When you go out onto the stage, all the preparation has to be forced into your subconscious. For the moment of the performance, we all have to return to a new level of unconsciousness. All the reflection and all the doubts have to be laid aside before you start."
- Dietrich Fischer Dieskau
(Related: Performance, Preparation, Reflection)

"If I produce it, I will stage it as a performance. A small audience will be invited; rehearsals of the sections will be done in the mornings, and those sections will be recorded in the afternoons."
- Bill Dixon
(Related: Performance, Will)

"If I had money, I would like to get an old building, have music performances, do lithographs, have shows of paintings, and do those things that I'm interested in doing."
- Bill Dixon
(Related: Music, Money, Building, Old)

"The same things we've done the past couple of seasons. We've worked on the engine and clutch. We'll try and pick up the performance and consistency of the car and go back out there."
- Larry Dixon
(Related: Car, Consistency, Performance, Past, Seasons)

"I would love to do more movies. I'd like to get into some theater, too, if I could, just to learn more. I want to do gritty performances that I'm proud of. It doesn't matter to me if four people see it or millions of people see it, as long as I perform in such a way that people go, 'Wow!'"
- Jason Dohring
(Related: Love, Movies, People, Theater, Want)

"Let us be clear: I take ten times more money for a concert than for an opera performance."
- Placido Domingo
(Related: Money, Performance, Opera)

"That's how you get a performance - they put trust in you."
- Richard Donner
(Related: Trust, Performance)

"All of us are trying to achieve 100 percent in our work. That's all we struggle to do. We never do, but we never stop trying until the day we die. It's that struggle to achieve 100 percent, that's where our performance lies, that's what the audience gets. They get the struggle."
- Vincent D'Onofrio
(Related: Work, Performance, Day, Lies, Struggle, Trying)

"I've mainly been in dramas, so this is one of my first comedy kind of performances in Cecil B. Demented."
- Stephen Dorff
(Related: Comedy, First)

"Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance."
- William O. Douglas
(Related: Performance, Free speech, May, Today, Yesterday)

"With NOAH, you can create some stunning, yet original soundscapes. Therefore, as a performance tool, it really comes into its own because you can make one single performance which has a lot of detail."
- Geoff Downes
(Related: Performance, Detail)

"Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the "naturals," the ones who somehow know how to teach."
- Peter Drucker
(Related: Performance, Competence, Occupation, Teaching, Tools)

"A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge."
- Peter Drucker
(Related: Manager, Knowledge, Performance)

"I wanted to make a classical piece that was actually designed to be a CD, not designed for performance."
- Anne Dudley
(Related: Performance)

"So that ends my first experience of matrimony, which I always thought a highly over-rated performance."
- Isadora Duncan
(Related: Experience, Thought, Performance, First, Matrimony)

"From the business point of view - not to overstate it - intellectual property is dead; long live intellectual process. Long live service; long live performance."
- Esther Dyson
(Related: Business, Performance, Property, Service)

"However, yes, especially as one gets older, you know, you really hope that your music will become more generally available, even though some of the performances might be riddled with faults."
- John Eaton
(Related: Music, Hope, Faults, Will)

"I think I was first to do live performances on a modern electronic sound synthesizer."
- John Eaton
(Related: First, Sound)

"Our communications services revenue growth is being driven by continued strong top-line performance in data, Internet and international - three of the fastest growing and most profitable areas within communications services."
- Bernard Ebbers
(Related: Growth, Performance, Being, Internet)

"I had to help to coax the performances and I really enjoyed that extra responsibility."
- Christopher Eccleston
(Related: Help, Responsibility)

"I would love to get great performances from actors as a director, because that's what I'm always looking for, a director that's going to help me go places I've never been before."
- Aaron Eckhart
(Related: Love, Actors, Help)

"The obsession with performance left no room for the development of the intuitive or spiritual impact of space and form other than the aesthetic of the machine itself."
- Arthur Erickson
(Related: Development, Performance, Machine, Obsession, Space, Spiritual)

"I like working with an actor who doesn't do the oneupmanship. One who has no trick and gives a true, honest performance."
- Erik Estrada
(Related: Performance, Actor)

"From what I've been able to determine, many of our big stars are addicted to tobacco. They want to smoke in movies for the same reason I smoked as I wrote, which is that they think their performance is going to be better."
- Joe Eszterhas
(Related: Movies, Performance, Reason, Stars, Want)

"They got a great performance from me. I was happy."
- Jimmy Fallon
(Related: Performance)

"I was the worst extra, I was 'that' guy. I was the guy on the phone trying to get the Oscar for best extra - for best background performance."
- Jon Favreau
(Related: Performance, Trying)

"Jessica Lange in Frances... was dramatic and passionate and one of the strongest performances I've seen a woman do."
- Sherilyn Fenn
(Related: Woman)

"You really, really, really have to love what you are going to do in theatre because it is an unmerciful life. It's six days a week. It's eight performances a week. And that's doing the exact same thing over and over and over again."
- Harvey Fierstein
(Related: Love, Life, Theatre)

"I started using film as part of live theatre performance - what used to be called performance art - and I became intrigued by film."
- Mike Figgis
(Related: Art, Performance, Film, Theatre)

"You are going in one second the length of a football field. That means you brain is receiving information from your body what the car is doing physically, bumping, balance, performance."
- Emerson Fittipaldi
(Related: Car, Performance, Balance, Body, Football, Information)

"That's a wonderful thing, because one of the primary qualities of a good performance is honesty."
- Roberta Flack
(Related: Honesty, Performance)

"When I was on the ice, in the lights, with the music and the motion, there was a certain kind of flirtation that gave great energy and expressiveness to my performance."
- Peggy Fleming
(Related: Music, Performance, Energy, Flirtation)

"A total commitment is paramount to reaching the ultimate in performance."
- Tom Flores
(Related: Performance, Commitment)

"There's the Bacon society, which is fostered by his fourth wife Helen Bacon, but I don't know what kind of performances his music gets. He wrote symphonic music and some chorale music."
- Carlisle Floyd
(Related: Music, Society, Wife)

"The performances of my works in the last 10 years are probably equal to all the previous years put together. There are so many venues now and there is a completely new public for opera that's grown up outside of the traditional core opera public."
- Carlisle Floyd
(Related: Now, Opera, Public, Years)

"I'm much more energetic now; you might say live performance is my mission."
- John Fogerty
(Related: Performance, Mission, Now)

"The kindest word to describe my performance in school was Sloth."
- Harrison Ford
(Related: Performance, School, Word)

"All the dialogue on tape, and we'd play the tape in performance. Then I thought it'd be interesting if the actor's repeated what they heard on the tape, but at a slower speed, so we'd get a web of language."
- Richard Foreman
(Related: Thought, Performance, Actor, Language, Play)

"Personality is essential. It is in every work of art. When someone walks on stage for a performance and has charisma, everyone is convinced that he has personality. I find that charisma is merely a form of showmanship. Movie stars usually have it. A politician has to have it."
- Lukas Foss
(Related: Work, Art, Performance, Charisma, Personality, Stars)

"As I sit down and start to work, I often panic. I stare at the empty piece of music paper. How can I say that my piece will be ready for performance next January when I do not have a recipe for making it happen?"
- Lukas Foss
(Related: Music, Work, Performance, Will)

"It is the element I miss in electronic music - no performance, no loving immersion. Maybe that is why I was never particularly drawn to electronic music."
- Lukas Foss
(Related: Music, Performance)

"I'm not comfortable singing in front of people yet. That's going to take another 100 performances."
- David Friedman
(Related: People, Singing)

"I've been onstage once for one performance with four days' rehearsal."
- Anna Friel
(Related: Performance)

"Then certainly for a musician timing becomes something that is immediately accessible as a concept, because it's a necessity in ones everyday performance."
- Robert Fripp
(Related: Performance, Necessity)

"I think what made it difficult for people to get, and still makes it difficult for people to get, is the theatrical nature of the work and the fact that, my music doesn't exist without the performance-art element."
- Lady Gaga
(Related: Music, Nature, Work, People, Performance, Fact)

"The strongest results were in Florida and Texas. In just one year in a Texas charter school, an average student gained 7 percentile points in math and 8 percentile points in reading, while Florida charter schools improved student performance by 6 percentile points."
- Maggie Gallagher
(Related: Performance, Reading, Results, School, Schools)

"As far as performance, the roar of the crowd, the smell of the greasepaint no I don't feel that."
- Peter Garrett
(Related: Performance)

"Performance is your reality. Forget everything else."
- Harold S. Geneen
(Related: Performance, Forget, Reality)

"Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Nonperformance can always be explained away."
- Harold S. Geneen
(Related: Performance)

"The best way to inspire people to superior performance is to convince them by everything you do and by your everyday attitude that you are wholeheartedly supporting them."
- Harold S. Geneen
(Related: People, Attitude, Performance)

"In business, words are words; explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality."
- Harold S. Geneen
(Related: Business, Performance, Explanations, Promises, Reality, Words)

"It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises-but only performance is reality."
- Harold S. Geneen
(Related: Business, Performance, Explanations, Law, Promises, Reality, Words)

"I think it is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises - but only performance is reality."
- Harold S. Geneen
(Related: Business, Performance, Explanations, Law, Promises, Reality, Words)

"It is much more difficult to measure nonperformance than performance."
- Harold S. Geneen
(Related: Performance, Measure)

"The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event."
- Edward Gibbon
(Related: Performance)

"To pay out millions upon millions of dollars in bonuses for incomplete work, poor performance, and unacceptable products is the height of government waste and mismanagement."
- Jim Gibbons
(Related: Government, Work, Performance, Poor, Waste)

"I would have liked it to have stayed serious and have the adventures of a family lost in space. This isn't to take anything away from Jonathan and the Robot. I watch his performance today and he still makes me laugh."
- Mark Goddard
(Related: Family, Performance, Space, Today)

"If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Related: Performance, Woman, Years)

"An announcer is only as good as yesterday's performance."
- Curt Gowdy
(Related: Performance, Yesterday)

"So much depends on the performance, and here you are also tied up in the emotion the game evokes."
- David Gower
(Related: Performance, Emotion)

"I'd like to think I could do something great - a performance like Meryl Streep's in 'Sophie's Choice' - at some point in my life. At the same time, though, I don't want to put too much pressure on myself to be great."
- Heather Graham
(Related: Life, Time, Performance, Choice, Pressure, Want)

"We need to make sure parents and coaches are aware of the dangers an on the look-out for the warning signs. Performance enhancing drugs are too damaging to young people for parents and coaches to not be involved."
- Chuck Grassley
(Related: People, Performance, Coaches, Drugs, Parents)

"I'm worried because of my mother, she's going to see my performance and she's quite hard. She's going to see me naked. And my Dad, woah. Yeah, they're going to see me like a woman, you know?"
- Eva Green
(Related: Dad, Mother, Performance, Woman)

"I am thrilled yet overwhelmed. There are so many great women athletes, some incredible performances."
- Nancy Greene
(Related: Women, Athletes)

"There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance. Miss that moment - and you start to decline."
- Andy Grove
(Related: Change, History, Performance, Company)

"Look at Walter Huston in The Devil and Daniel Webster: It's an incredible performance."
- Taylor Hackford
(Related: Performance, Devil)

"I try to get the best performance an actor can give."
- Taylor Hackford
(Related: Performance, Actor)

"I love doing theater so much - being in front of an audience and seeing how a character grows and develops with every performance."
- Jerry Hall
(Related: Love, Character, Performance, Being, Theater)

"I think I avoid stepping into sentimentality by trying to be as truthful as possible with performances."
- Lasse Hallstrom
(Related: Sentimentality, Trying)

"I am always more interested in performance and character depiction, and my direction says as much."
- Lasse Hallstrom
(Related: Character, Performance, Direction)

"I imagined that it might be awkward to talk to your wife about her performance, so going into it I was a little nervous. But doing it was actually a wonderfully inspiring experience."
- Lasse Hallstrom
(Related: Experience, Wife, Performance, Inspiring, Talk)

"I just try to touch people's hearts in a way through skating, so they're not just witnessing a performance, they're feeling a performance and they're a part of it."
- Scott Hamilton
(Related: People, Performance, Feeling)

"It is enough that we set out to mold the motley stuff of life into some form of our own choosing; when we do, the performance is itself the wage."
- Learned Hand
(Related: Life, Performance, Wage)

"The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job."
- Thomas Hardy
(Related: Age, Men, Performance, Job, Old, Value)

"We figured you could download live shows for days, so we decided to go for a cream-of-the-crop approach, but not just take the best vocal or the best performances."
- Ben Harper
"I think that technology has both introduced new sounds but also allowed an increasingly painterly approach to recording music as you can now paint over what you've done and more and more refine an existing performance."
- Jerry Harrison
(Related: Music, Technology, Performance, Now)

"I turned on VH1 this morning just to get a little warm-up before I came over here, and I think it's just terrific. There's so much great stuff: diverse and wonderful music, good performances, great looking girls, great videos, the whole thing."
- Debbie Harry
(Related: Music, Girls)

"I went to a performance of 'The Crucible' at the Guthrie when I was a sophomore in high school, and I knew right away that that's what I wanted to do."
- John Hawkes
(Related: Performance, Right, School)

"I think we raised about 20,000 pounds. There was a live performance thing so we thought we'd donate the equipment for an online charity in Britain. I hated to part with my guitar, but it was for such a great cause."
- Dan Hawkins
(Related: Thought, Performance, Cause, Charity, Guitar)

"I'm not saying that more performance wouldn't be better - all these technologies are going to get better - that's the difference between first generation and second generation."
- Trip Hawkins
(Related: Performance, Difference, First, Saying)

"To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible."
- Rutherford B. Hayes
(Related: Performance, Debt, Duty, Vote)

"The voters reward good performance. So, I'm going to go out and focus, if I become the governor, to do the very best job I can as governor. The rest of it will take care of itself."
- Dave Heineman
(Related: Performance, Care, Focus, Job, Rest, Reward, Will)

"If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you."
- Levon Helm
(Related: Heart, Performance, Energy, Play, Song, Will)

"Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor."
- Ernest Hemingway
(Related: Art, Death, Performance, Artist, Danger, Honor)

"We've always had a dark atmosphere to our performances, so it sort of developed along those ways."
- Kenny Hickey
"I try to keep myself on an even keel by trying to be as critical of myself as I am of other people. I try to separate my performance from myself."
- Damon Hill
(Related: People, Performance, Trying)

"Some books claim I have already clocked up a century of Grands Prix, but let me put the record straight. Australia will be my 100th start, and I aim to mark the milestone with a cracking performance. It could even be celebrated with a victory."
- Damon Hill
(Related: Performance, Victory, Books, Will)

"I hated the whole idea of being an actress. I used to throw up before every performance and cry afterward."
- Judy Holliday
(Related: Idea, Performance, Being)

"Nobody can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked."
- Judy Holliday
(Related: Performance, Composers, Fact)

"The road to freedom lies not through mysteries or occult performances, but through the intelligent use of natural forces and laws."
- Ernest Holmes
(Related: Freedom, Laws, Lies, Road)

"The eating of burning brimstone is an entirely fake performance."
- Harry Houdini
(Related: Performance, Eating)

"I firmly believe that all human beings have access to extraordinary energies and powers. Judging from accounts of mystical experience, heightened creativity, or exceptional performance by athletes and artists, we harbor a greater life than we know."
- Jean Houston
(Related: Life, Experience, Creativity, Performance, Artists, Athletes)

"No, I'm not a drug addict, and neither is my husband. If that were so, you'd get a lot less work out of me. It would show in the performances and in the work."
- Whitney Houston
(Related: Work, Husband)

"The president's poking fun at himself over what goes down. I thought it was a good-natured performance. It made him look good. But he certainly doesn't disguise the record on weapons of mass destruction. And you feel like saying to people, Just get over it."
- Brit Hume
(Related: Thought, People, Performance, Destruction, Disguise, Fun, President, Saying, Weapons)

"Consciousness is a phase of mental life which arises in connection with the formation of new habits. When habit is formed, consciousness only interferes to spoil our performance."
- William Ralph Inge
(Related: Life, Habit, Performance, Connection, Consciousness, Habits)

"The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists."
- Kazuo Ishiguro
(Related: Performance, Artists, Now, World)

"But now in this day and age, people are more prone to go out to try new things to enhance their performance on the field - to enhance their physical appearance."
- Bo Jackson
(Related: Age, People, Performance, Appearance, Day, Now)

"I have some of the old videos of my performances on it."
- Wanda Jackson
(Related: Old)

"We were doing performance art as far back as 1965, just not calling it that."
- Joseph Jarman
(Related: Art, Performance)

"Nobody has milked one performance better than me - and I'm damned proud of it."
- Bruce Jenner
(Related: Performance)

"Why do musicians give so much time to charitable causes? The most humanitarian cause that we can give our time to is the creation and performance of music itself."
- Billy Joel
(Related: Music, Time, Performance, Cause, Causes, Creation, Musicians)

"Good directing is about getting the performance to be just what's right for the movie."
- Roland Joffe
(Related: Performance, Right)

"Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance."
- Samuel Johnson
(Related: Design, Performance)

"A performance is only as good as the audience you are playing to. A lot of times you feed off of the audience, and we always try to give them all we've got and sometimes you don't get a lot back, but we've never been dead whenever we've performed."
- Kelly Jones
(Related: Performance)

"Nobody has ever said anything about Marion Jones every using performance-enhancing drugs and they never will."
- Marion Jones
(Related: Performance, Drugs, Will)

"A lot of companies make diversity a part of the performance goals against which an executive gets paid. Just as you have to make a certain sales number, you have to make a diversity number to get your bonus."
- Vernon Jordan
(Related: Goals, Performance, Diversity, Sales)

"I think it killed the performance on a lot of the systems in the Labs for years because everyone had their own copy of it, but it wasn't being shared, and so they wasted huge amounts of memory back when memory was expensive."
- Bill Joy
(Related: Performance, Being, Memory, Years)

"We always had chocolates and my mother was careful to make sure they were unwrapped in advance so the paper wouldn't rustle in the middle of a performance."
- Penelope Keith
(Related: Mother, Performance)

"Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only in race horses and women."
- Lord Kelvin
(Related: Women, Performance, Horses, Race)

"Yesterday morning I amused myself with an exercise of a talent I once possessed, but have so neglected that my performance might almost be called an experiment. I cut out a dress for one of the women."
- Fanny Kemble
(Related: Women, Talent, Performance, Dress, Exercise, Yesterday)

"It's been an amazing year of individual performances."
- Steve Kerr
"You go for the quality of the performance, not the longevity of it."
- Don King
(Related: Quality, Performance, Longevity)

"If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance."
- Ben Kingsley
(Related: Work, Performance, Fish, Help, Months, Play)

"I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work."
- Nastassja Kinski
(Related: Work, People, Performance, May, Play, Sound, Theater)

"I think you can really tell a good actor if you can put a camera on them and they can just talk and emote and react and you don't have to keep cutting away from them, because they are the language and the behavior. It's all a tour-de-force performance."
- Sally Kirkland
(Related: Performance, Actor, Behavior, Language, Talk)

"Secular artists see themselves with performance; they are more self involved, presentational."
- Boris Kodjoe
(Related: Performance, Artists, Self)

"The Southern Baptist Church is a specific culture in itself. So, I had to study, talk to people, watch tape and go to performances to see how Gospel artists move compared to secular artists."
- Boris Kodjoe
(Related: People, Church, Artists, Culture, Study, Talk)

"The bulk of my set is instrumental and you have to give yourself and the audience some relief because a performance is not about great guitar playing it's really about entertainment."
- Leo Kottke
(Related: Performance, Entertainment, Guitar)

"The principle element in a performance is risk, and if you're losing interest then by scaring yourself to death the audience will feel it and boy it'll wake them up."
- Leo Kottke
(Related: Death, Performance, Interest, Losing, Risk, Will)

"The first thing you have to do is take everything with a grain of salt. You know, you've gotta just look at the goal, focus on what you gotta do and take one step at a time as a whole, as every performance being that's it, that's one objective, and let's just move forward and work on that."
- Stefano Langone
(Related: Time, Work, Goal, Performance, Being, First, Focus)

"We all have levels of performance."
- Angela Lansbury
(Related: Performance)

"It is quite true, as some poets said, that the God who created man must have had a sinister sense of humor, creating him a reasonable being, yet forcing him to take this ridiculous posture, and driving him with blind craving for this ridiculous performance."
- David Herbert Lawrence
(Related: God, Humor, Performance, Being, Blind, Driving, Poets, Sense)

"Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity."
- Georg C. Lichtenberg
(Related: Talent, Performance, Circumstances, Deeds, Spirit, Stupidity)

"A theatre receives recognition through its initiative, which is indispensable for first-rate performances."
- Franz Liszt
(Related: First, Theatre)

"We need improvement in the style of performance. There is no more advantage in a musician who plays and conducts than in one who is only a beater of rhythm."
- Franz Liszt
(Related: Performance, Improvement, Style)

"I still get really nervous, though, before each performance. It kind of hits about 15 minutes before we go onstage - sometimes I don't even want to go on. But once I'm onstage I'm fine."
- Alison Lohman
(Related: Performance, Want)

"I'm on performance enhancing drugs, so I may cause drowsiness."
- Jay London
(Related: Performance, Cause, Drugs, May)

"Al Gore's performances could be a case study in abnormal-psychology classes."
- Rich Lowry
(Related: Study)

"People come up to me as I leave the stage after a performance and tell me tey saw my mother onstage with me every time I sing. I keep a sense of humor about it."
- Lorna Luft
(Related: Humor, Time, Mother, People, Performance, Sense)

"Ethanol is a premier, high performance fuel. It has tremendous environmental benefits and is a key component to energy independence for our country."
- Richard Lugar
(Related: Environmental, Performance, Benefits, Country, Energy, Independence, Key)

"A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage."
- Bela Lugosi
(Related: Time, Knowledge, Performance, Actor, Will)

"The actor depends wholly on himself. He gives his performance in what, to him, seems the most effective manner."
- Bela Lugosi
(Related: Performance, Actor)

"Denzel Washington invoked confidence. When you have confidence, you can do anything. And that's what happened. I learned about being honest and keeping it true, keeping it true in my performance."
- Derek Luke
(Related: Performance, Being, Confidence, Washington)

"There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time."
- Malcolm X
(Related: Time, Performance, Adversity, Defeat, Heartbreak, Loss)

"To pay 60 musicians for rehearsal and performance is quite something, and I decided I wouldn't be able to handle that kind of situation financially again, unless somebody else was taking care of that end of it."
- Chuck Mangione
(Related: Performance, Care, End, Musicians)

"I made many studio albums and I think the danger of studio recording is that if you do not watch out, you come out with a perfectly sterile performance."
- Chuck Mangione
(Related: Performance, Danger)

"One of my side strange abilities is to hear a good song, no matter how it's being performed. Even if you get a bad performance, I can still hear that there's a good song."
- Manfred Mann
(Related: Performance, Being, Song)

"So, sometimes, when I'm not happy with my performance and I have to think, I will think in English."
- Sophie Marceau
(Related: Performance, English, Will)

"Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life."
- Branford Marsalis
(Related: Life, Performance, Jazz, Quest, Right, Trouble)

"It would have to be connected with performance art somehow, either in the front of the house or the back. I was myopic about this from fourth grade on."
- James Marsters
(Related: Art, Performance)

"Don't lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself, and then do what is necessary to make it a reality."
- Ralph Marston
(Related: Performance, Expectations, Reality)

"As I came to New York, it was for me a new beginning. To discover what people are living here. What do they need, what do they expect, what would they like to be the image and the performance of the New York Philharmonic?"
- Kurt Masur
(Related: People, Performance, Beginning, Living)

"No one will ever argue that someone could have played Helen Keller better than Patty Duke. It was an incredibly demanding role and I don't think anyone can argue that it was a false performance."
- Richard Masur
(Related: Performance, Will)

"I had a flair for comedy and could give a sustained performance."
- Jessie Matthews
(Related: Performance, Comedy)

"It is strange how your understanding of a play changes. It normally happens after a performance and you suddenly think, 'So that's what that line really means' - it's like a light going on."
- Richard McCabe
(Related: Performance, Light, Play, Understanding)

"I take the longest to get ready of anyone. I've been going in two hours before the show every performance."
- Rue McClanahan
(Related: Performance)

"I did the one concert, and I was not bitten by the conducting bug, and I thought I was done, but then the phone started to ring, and gradually, over time, I started conducting more and more. Now a third of my performances are with orchestras."
- Bobby McFerrin
(Related: Time, Thought, Now, Orchestras)

"If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children, things that touch your soul."
- Roger McGough
(Related: Poetry, Father, Soul, People, Performance, Children, Comedy, Dying, Reading, Talking, Want)

"One only has to look at the performance of the economy to understand how it shapes the perspective of America's youth about military service."
- John M. McHugh
(Related: Performance, America, Economy, Military, Perspective, Service, Youth)

"When we'd suggested doing it, the Theatre Royal management had said, 'Nobody wants to see Waiting for Godot.' As it happened, every single ticket was booked for every single performance, and this confirmation that our judgment was right was sweet. Audiences came to us from all over the world. It was amazing."
- Ian McKellen
(Related: Management, Performance, Audiences, Judgment, Right, Theatre, Waiting, World)

"I'd never played a cop before, and this particular role with what she is going thru, especially during the first season, covering her alcoholism to her on the job performance, was a great opportunity for me as an actress."
- Nancy McKeon
(Related: Opportunity, Performance, First, Job)

"I consider that my best performance ever was as Peer Gynt."
- Leo McKern
(Related: Performance)

"Jackie considered his resurrection, the world's best return performance."
- Audrey Meadows
(Related: Performance, World)

"I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance."
- Sam Mendes
(Related: Movies, Performance, Actor, End, Theater)

"I preferred delivering my performance in person. I liked to be in control. You couldn't be in films."
- Ethel Merman
(Related: Control, Performance)

"Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first, then read it. Performance is more provocative."
- Adrian Mitchell
(Related: Poetry, Performance, First, Provocative)

"For me, making the show work was getting belly laughs - like most variety artists. But the straight actor believes you fix your performance in rehearsal and that's it."
- Ron Moody
(Related: Work, Performance, Actor, Artists, Variety)

"When a pianist sits down and does a virtuoso performance he is in a technical sense transmitting more information to a machine than any other human activity involving machinery allows."
- Robert Moog
(Related: Performance, Information, Machine, Sense)

"I remember the difficulty we had in the beginning replacing magnetic cores in memories and eventually we had both cost and performance advantages. But it wasn't at all clear in the beginning."
- Gordon Moore
(Related: Performance, Beginning, Difficulty, Memories)

"Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it."
- Van Morrison
(Related: Beauty, Performance)

"I've done scenes in films that I felt like the performance was better in certain takes, but they couldn't use them because it didn't match what the person was doing when they came around and the camera was on them."
- David Morse
(Related: Performance)

"When you're buying real growth and want real performance, you buy excellent management and good products and you diversify across industry sectors."
- Robert Morse
(Related: Growth, Management, Performance, Buying, Want)

"Some directors cast you because they trust you to do the performance - but then they forget to direct you."
- Samantha Morton
(Related: Trust, Performance, Forget)

"For decades, the journalistic norm had been that the private lives of public officials remained private unless that life impinged on public performance."
- Roger Mudd
(Related: Life, Performance, Public)

"It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable."
- Cillian Murphy
(Related: Film)

"I am certainly suffering from a modicum of performance anxiety."
- George Murray
(Related: Performance, Anxiety, Suffering)

"You have to channel the interpretation and performance into 100 people. And with the audience, the critics."
- Riccardo Muti
(Related: People, Performance)

"Offspring, the due performance on religious rites, faithful service, highest conjugal happiness and heavenly bliss for the ancestors and oneself, depend on one's wife alone."
- Guru Nanak
(Related: Happiness, Wife, Performance, Religious, Service)

"After six or seven performances of any song, you begin to perform it rather than feel it."
- Graham Nash
(Related: Song)

"An arts education helps build academic skills and increase academic performance, while also providing alternative opportunities to reward the skills of children who learn differently."
- Gavin Newsom
(Related: Education, Performance, Children, Reward)

"If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear?"
- Stevie Nicks
(Related: Fear, Performance, Key)

"What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance."
- Richard M. Nixon
(Related: Anger, Change, Performance, Deep, Excellence)

"My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance. I always do more than I say. I always produce more than I promise."
- Richard M. Nixon
(Related: Performance, Promise)

"The development of a political-economic framework to explore long-run institutional change occupied me during all of the 1980s and led to the publication of Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance in 1990."
- Douglass North
(Related: Change, Development, Performance)

"I always want to do things that are different. I don't want to be doing the same thing, the same performance constantly, and it feels like most people tell you that they are the same. However different you feel might approach them."
- Jeremy Northam
(Related: People, Performance, Want)

"The children, each of those kids is in touch with nature and traditional aboriginal culture so a very important part of getting performances from them was just letting them be and trying to capture the unique spirituality that was in each of them."
- Phillip Noyce
(Related: Nature, Children, Culture, Kids, Spirituality, Trying)

"I would be terribly disappointed if anything would get in the way of my being cast in something, or if performances were canceled. It was a fix that I obviously needed."
- Trevor Nunn
(Related: Being)

"The Parent Trap wouldn't have been as special without the remarkable performances by Hayley Mills."
- Maureen O'Hara
(Related: Remarkable)

"Well, no. I believe that it's not at all impossible that some of the performances that I've heard so far by some pianists may be superior to my own playing because those are two totally different acts altogether."
- Leo Ornstein
(Related: May)

"There are some people, by the way, that associate a certain amount of visualization with the performance of music. Those are people that really are not centrally concerned only with music, the traditional things."
- Leo Ornstein
(Related: Music, People, Performance, Visualization)

"In the theater, you go from point A to point Z, building your performance as the evening progresses. You have to relinquish that control on a film."
- Gwyneth Paltrow
(Related: Control, Performance, Building, Evening, Film, Theater)

"The adrenaline of a live performance is unlike anything in film or theater. I can see why it's so addictive."
- Gwyneth Paltrow
(Related: Performance, Film, Theater)

"If I think about the way I was drawn into the music, it was much more by recordings than by live performances."
- Evan Parker
(Related: Music)

"I wanted to feel that precision and control and then try to apply it to tele. That's what I've looked for in my gear development through the years, and today, tele is very precise, very high-performance."
- Paul Parker
(Related: Development, Control, Today, Years)

"The Dark Side of the Moon has flash - the true flash that comes from the excellence of a superb performance."
- Alan Parsons
(Related: Performance, Excellence, Moon)

"When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality."
- Joe Paterno
(Related: Performance, Confidence, Excellence, Reality)

"Sayles could pull a performance out of a dog. I'm serious. He was just amazing. The world could fall apart and he remained on neutral."
- Elizabeth Pena
(Related: Performance, World)

"Even though I don't feel I need approval, it's still important to me to give a good performance. I'm hard on myself."
- Michelle Pfeiffer
(Related: Performance, Approval)

"Unless an entire row of people got up in the middle of a performance and left the theater in disgust, I felt as though I hadn't done my job."
- Jeremy Piven
(Related: People, Performance, Disgust, Job, Theater)

"Ninety per cent of how you learn is watching great people. When you are surrounded by good actors it lifts your performance."
- Natalie Portman
(Related: People, Performance, Actors)

"Then I started graduate school at UCLA. I got a part time research assistant job as a programmer on a project involving the use of one computer to measure the performance of another computer."
- Jon Postel
(Related: Time, Performance, Computer, Job, Measure, Project, Research, School)

"I do not believe that the government is in any position to say exactly how every single business and every single activity shall reach those performances."
- Dixie Lee Ray
(Related: Business, Government)

"I always see things that I can improve. But frankly with Stripes, I'm surprised at how effective it is, even today, and how vibrant that movie is and how juicy the performances all are."
- Ivan Reitman
(Related: Today)

"If I had a bad performance in a particular leotard, I threw it in the trash."
- Mary Lou Retton
(Related: Performance)

"Did you know I staged the first performance in America of At the Hawk's Well?"
- Kenneth Rexroth
(Related: Performance, America, First)

"To me, as long as we've known each other, I've always thought Mick's most brilliant thing was that he could work in an area two foot square and give a very exciting performance."
- Keith Richards
(Related: Work, Thought, Performance)

"A particular shot or way of moving the ball can be a player's personal signature, but efficiency of performance is what wins the game for the team."
- Pat Riley
(Related: Performance, Efficiency)

"Your performance gets you promoted. It doesn't matter if you're brown, back or white."
- Geraldo Rivera
(Related: Performance)

"I'd gone through periods where I didn't work live performances for probably seven or eight months at a time."
- Johnny Rivers
(Related: Time, Work, Months)

"I wouldn't do nudity in films. For me, personally... To act with my clothes on is a performance; to act with my clothes off is a documentary."
- Julia Roberts
(Related: Performance, Act, Clothes, Nudity)

"It's always been performance art, but now it's on a different level."
- Mark Roberts
(Related: Art, Performance, Now)

"My guess is many top athletes, distance runners included, use performance-enhancing drugs, enough so that the problem must be tackled."
- Bill Rodgers
(Related: Performance, Athletes, Drugs)

"Those differences are what color the performance, but in the movies you don't get a chance to rehearse."
- Wayne Rogers
(Related: Movies, Performance, Chance)

"Giving a good performance, giving it all is what it's all about. I love to perform."
- Henry Rollins
(Related: Love, Performance, Giving)

"Well, you would have to say what is the criteria to determine the success of any merger? It would have to be that the companies are stronger financially, that they took market share, and they are on a very steady footing in terms of their performance."
- Kevin Rollins
(Related: Success, Performance)

"Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Related: Honesty, Performance, Confidence, Honor, Protection)

"When recordings replaced concerts as the dominant mode of hearing music, our conception of the nature of performance and of music itself was altered."
- Charles Rosen
(Related: Music, Nature, Performance, Hearing)

"America is the civilization of people engaged in transforming themselves. In the past, the stars of the performance were the pioneer and the immigrant. Today, it is youth and the Black."
- Harold Rosenberg
(Related: People, Civilization, Performance, America, Past, Stars, Today, Youth)

"I don't care to analyze acting. On the other hand there is a fascination because distributors are putting out British films. You get films here with great performances you'll never see again. Why compare. We should go after the businessmen."
- Tim Roth
(Related: Acting, Care)

"Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it."
- Jean Jacques Rousseau
(Related: Performance, Promise)

"He who is most slow in making a promise is the most faithful in performance of it."
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(Related: Performance, Promise)

"It was important to have a similar energy in my performance. To make the character too different would have just been about my ego because it didn't need to be drastically different."
- Brandon Routh
(Related: Character, Performance, Ego, Energy)

"I don't want to feel like I'm stuck doing one-stock performances."
- Mark Ruffalo
(Related: Want)

"Your performance depends on your people. Select the best, train them and back them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. If errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on. The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House."
- Donald Rumsfeld
(Related: People, Performance, Country, Errors, Guidance, Help, Wrong)

"Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance."
- Donald Rumsfeld
(Related: Performance, President, Value, Will, Wonders)

"If the seams are showing, there is something wrong with the performance or the construction of the piece. This idea is completely at odds with our modern visual experience, because everything today is based on montage."
- Esa-Pekka Salonen
(Related: Experience, Idea, Performance, Today, Wrong)

"I can't imagine how many first performances I've done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad."
- Esa-Pekka Salonen
(Related: First)

"I started off in a small theatre performance company and worked my way into commercials."
- Devon Sawa
(Related: Performance, Company, Theatre)

"I thought his performance was absolutely wonderful and had said so, but he seemed, as actors quite often are when they first see.something, to be disappointed. I think he expected more from the film and himself."
- John Schlesinger
(Related: Thought, Performance, Actors, Film, First)

"No, we've been performing our old songs a little differently each performance."
- Fred Schneider
(Related: Performance, Old, Songs)

"The record company started as an adjunct to that, to give young composers their first recorded performances; to give young musicians their first debut on a recording. These are all things that big record companies would never touch because there is no money in it!"
- Gunther Schuller
(Related: Money, Company, Composers, First, Musicians)

"There's nothing like a play. It's so immediate and every performance is different. As an actor, you have the most control over what the audience is seeing."
- David Schwimmer
(Related: Control, Performance, Actor, Nothing, Play)

"The composers could no longer direct all performances in person, and so the responsibility of interpreting their works in the spirit in which they had been conceived was placed upon conductors."
- Anton Seidl
(Related: Composers, Responsibility, Spirit)

"It is essential that we put an end to steroid abuse and set a better example for aspiring young athletes to follow, so that some day, when they make it in the All Star Game, it will be because of their own natural talents, and not because of a performance enhancing product."
- Jim Sensenbrenner
(Related: Performance, Abuse, Athletes, Day, End, Example, Will)

"I've auditioned for roles that involved voice, but I don't like it. I feel like, I can't do this in front of you. It seems so separate - I don't share it with a lot of people. And I'm not into public performances."
- Amanda Seyfried
(Related: People, Public, Voice)

"Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?"
- William Shakespeare
(Related: Performance, Desire, Years)

"Black music has become a commercial commodity. Live performances are not so accessible as they were previously. It use to be possible to go to the bar on the corner and hear music. It was available for a fifteen cent beer."
- Archie Shepp
(Related: Music, Beer)

"Writing and singing does give me some kind of release from the demons of my past, it is a therapy of sorts, but to be honest, my marriage played a more important role in the acceptance of myself than performance has ever done."
- Michelle Shocked
(Related: Marriage, Performance, Acceptance, Past, Singing, Therapy, Writing)

"A good athlete always mentally replays a competition over and over, even in victory, to see what might be done to improve the performance the next time."
- Frank Shorter
(Related: Time, Performance, Victory, Competition)

"When all the performances are excellent, critics understand it's the direction."
- Joel Siegel
(Related: Direction)

"Two, I actually learned a lot of things that served me very well when it came to repeating performances on stage, because it is a craft and you do need a technique for it."
- Ron Silver
"Every superior personality, and every superior performance, has, for the average of mankind, something mysterious."
- Georg Simmel
(Related: Performance, Mankind, Personality)

"After I did Untamed Heart I wanted to do a film that was outrageous. I really wanted to do, you know, a performance. I don't want to allow my image to rule the choices that I make."
- Christian Slater
(Related: Heart, Performance, Choices, Film, Want)

"Hopefully, that people could see a progression in my performances because that's how it's always felt to me."
- Christian Slater
(Related: People)

"An entertainer should in his public performance keep himself out of any controversy, political or otherwise."
- Kate Smith
(Related: Performance, Controversy, Public)

"I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone."
- Maggie Smith
(Related: Performance, Theatre)

"The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage."
- Maggie Smith
"The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Performance, Fact, Illusion, Infinite, Possibilities)

"And one of our points of continuing conversation with our trading partners is the urgency of their taking steps to remove barriers to their improved growth performance."
- John W. Snow
(Related: Growth, Performance, Conversation)

"I guess why the Ocean's films are hard for me is because on the one hand you have to make sure the performances are there, but on the other hand it's a film that demands, to my mind, a very layered and complex visual scheme. That takes a lot of time to figure out."
- Steven Soderbergh
(Related: Time, Film, Mind, Ocean)

"I just produced Criminal, this remake of Nine Queens, and one of the things that appealed to me about Nine Queens is that it was a performance piece, and that's the most fun."
- Steven Soderbergh
(Related: Performance, Fun)

"The next day I was in my school's production of All My Sons. This was the performance where I realized something was happening between me and the audience that I hadn't recognized before."
- Kevin Spacey
(Related: Performance, Day, Production, School, Sons)

"Past performance speaks a tremendous amount about one's ability and likelihood for success."
- Mark Spitz
(Related: Success, Performance, Ability, Past)

"It's such a performance to bring stuff into America. It's a great luxury when I am in England."
- Terence Stamp
(Related: Performance, America, England, Luxury)

"On the last day of our five-day work week, we did two performances and we had an audience. It was similar to theatre; we went from beginning to end, and it was very pleasing."
- Jean Stapleton
(Related: Work, Beginning, Day, End, Theatre)

"Sometimes you have to sacrifice your performance for high heels."
- Gwen Stefani
(Related: Sacrifice, Performance)

"In other words, unlike some people with new theories, we will go out, we'll go into a school and we get products and the products are evaluated, whether it's by teachers or others. The scores are quantified and then we compare performances."
- Robert Sternberg
(Related: People, School, Teachers, Theories, Will, Words)

"I love the live performances and Las Vegas. I also like making films that are being discovered by another generation. Having been a teen idol of the '60s is great because you realize you left your generation with a smile and good memories."
- Connie Stevens
(Related: Love, Teen, Being, Memories, Smile)

"Musicals are written and then rewritten. Those things used to happen on the road. Now they are done in New York during preview performances."
- Peter Stone
(Related: Now, Road)

"When we contemplate the heroes of Christianity, and compare our feeble efforts with their astonishing performance and self devotion, we should fall into despair, were there not a few softening features, by which they are brought back to the ranks of humanity."
- John Strachan
(Related: Performance, Christianity, Despair, Devotion, Heroes, Humanity, Self)

"America doesn't reward people of my age, either in day-to-day life or for their performances."
- Meryl Streep
(Related: Life, Age, People, America, Day, Reward)

"I don't enjoy public performances and being up on a stage. I don't enjoy the glamour. Like tonight, I am up on stage and my feet hurt."
- Barbra Streisand
(Related: Being, Feet, Glamour, Hurt, Public)

"One of the things that I've always thought I would like to do is to develop an environmental index. Then people can measure their own environmental performance on an index as they do in other ways."
- Maurice Strong
(Related: Environmental, Thought, People, Performance, Measure)

"Claude Rains was what we call an actor's actor. He was very involved with himself and his performance."
- Gloria Stuart
(Related: Performance, Actor)

"When we shoot 24, there are so many things I have to worry about, from the script to technical things to my performance, that I don't have a second to be bored or take anything for granted. We produce 24 hours of film a season, which is like making 12 movies."
- Kiefer Sutherland
(Related: Movies, Performance, Film, Worry)

"When we shoot 24, there are so many things I have to worry about, from the script to technical things to my performance, that I don't have a second to be bored or take anything for granted."
- Kiefer Sutherland
(Related: Performance, Worry)

"I went to ballet school for nine years, and there was an agent for the whole school who happened to be there visiting one of the performances. She suggested an audition."
- Sarah Sutton
(Related: Ballet, School, Years)

"There may be a hundred thousand men in an army, who are all equally free; but they only are naturally most fit to be commanders or leaders, who most excel in the virtues required for the right performance of those offices."
- Algernon Sydney
(Related: Men, Performance, Army, Commanders, Leaders, May, Right)

"The Emmy should be an ensemble award, too. I kept howling at everyone else's performances."
- Jeffrey Tambor
"Americans work a long away ahead of themselves because of the size of the place. To make any impact at all you have to promote yourself with live performances ages before a release."
- James Taylor
(Related: Work, Americans)

"Clean living is the cardinal principle in the lives of the world's greatest athletes, as the phenomenal performances of these outstanding characters will obviously show."
- Major Taylor
(Related: Athletes, Living, Will, World)

"I have directed good actors and have gone through the process which is more detailed in theater in a way. You have to get people to stay for two or three hours in a performance. They need more talk and rehearsal than in films."
- Julie Taymor
(Related: People, Performance, Actors, Talk, Theater)

"I come from the performance world, but the idea of a worship song is different. It's useful music."
- John Tesh
(Related: Music, Idea, Performance, Song, World, Worship)

"The necessity to constantly turn in an excellent performance, to be absolutely wedded to this dedication and this ideal means that as a child you're going to pay for it personally."
- Twyla Tharp
(Related: Performance, Dedication, Necessity)

"Restoration I did because I really loved e novel and I like Michael Hoffman, who directed it, but it wasn't a really challenging part for me. I'm not critical of the film: I just don't think I gave a very interesting performance."
- David Thewlis
(Related: Performance)

"And at the same time, you are of course a performer, but it's very important that you understand that your role as a performer is to get the best performance from those wonderful colleagues that you have the chance to work with."
- Michael Tilson Thomas
(Related: Work, Time, Performance, Chance)

"The teacher of history's work should be, ideally, not simply a description of past cultures, but a performance of the culture in which we live and are increasingly taking our being."
- William Irwin Thompson
(Related: Work, History, Performance, Being, Culture, Past)

"All I have is my performance, I try to feed in the best of everything that I could possibly do into those 90 minutes and to make a live entertainment show out of it."
- George Thorogood
(Related: Performance, Entertainment)

"Conductors don't suffer, they are part of the performance."
- Michael Tippett
(Related: Performance)

"Music is a performance and needs the audience."
- Michael Tippett
(Related: Music, Performance, Needs)

"You have your structure, but within it, it gets fuller and you can highlight other parts of the performance."
- Marisa Tomei
(Related: Performance)

"The East Germans first used biomechanics. This meant that rather than guessing about technique and form, they could apply changes to athletic performance based on science."
- Bill Toomey
(Related: Science, Performance, First)

"Nutrition is also a valuable component that can help athletes both protect themselves and improve performance."
- Bill Toomey
(Related: Performance, Athletes, Help)

"Whenever I did a good performance, my Dad and my uncles, who were rabid movie fans, took me to the movies. There began my underlying love affair with film."
- Mel Torme
(Related: Dad, Love, Movies, Performance, Fans, Film)

"I didn't really have an act per se - a theatrical performance, as opposed to just: here I am, folks, and you're all supposed to be dead quiet while I sing eight or nine songs, then get off the stage."
- Mel Torme
(Related: Performance, Act, Quiet, Songs)

"It wasn't just about flashing lights and pinball machines blowing up and things like that. It was about using encores, bringing back the good songs and using techniques that I knew about from rock performance."
- Pete Townshend
(Related: Performance, Machines, Songs)

"Firms would be given initial entitlements to gross markup on the basis of past performance. These entitlements would be transferable and a market in them would be developed."
- William Vickrey
(Related: Performance, Past)

"The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I'd have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade."
- Ethel Waters
(Related: Thought, Performance, Audiences, Being)

"The performance of a lifetime is the perfect thing to be doing at this age because I can use the age."
- Fritz Weaver
(Related: Age, Performance)

"I generally find an affinity with a lot of the people I play and I suppose if I didn't feel an affinity for them then they wouldn't be particularly good performances."
- Hugo Weaving
(Related: People, Play)

"It was more freeing, mainly because he's so free anyway. He just is in his performance. So to mimic someone doing a free performance, well, that's pretty freeing within itself."
- Michael Welch
(Related: Performance, Pretty)

"I guess because you study the character and you do all those things. But when it comes down to it, it's still my performance, it's still my interpretation. I'm not going to, you know, be a clone - well, I was a clone of Richard Dean Anderson!"
- Michael Welch
(Related: Character, Performance, Study)

"An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises."
- Mae West
(Related: Performance, Promises, Worth)

"Whereas fiction is a continual discovery of what one wants to say, what one feels, what one means, and is, in that sense, a performance art, biography requires different skills - research and organization."
- Edmund White
(Related: Art, Performance, Biography, Discovery, Fiction, Research, Sense)

"I have never taken any substance to enhance my performance."
- Kelli White
(Related: Performance)

"What we've seen this season is that if something that will enhance performance is available, some players will indulge... unless the penalty is an absolute deterrent."
- Michael Wilbon
(Related: Performance, Will)

"I owe the public a good performance, the best I can give. We really bust our chops on 'CHiPs' but when I go home and get a weekend off, I want to spend it quietly, with my lady."
- Larry Wilcox
(Related: Home, Performance, Lady, Public, Want, Weekend)

"Even people that know Johnny Cash's music really well and know that he was married don't really know that much about June Carter. So finding out about her really helped to inform my performance and to bring her to the front in a way that she has never been before."
- Reese Witherspoon
(Related: Music, People, Performance, June)

"I say this quite deliberately, this is the finest Shakespearean performance I've seen."
- Donald Wolfit
(Related: Performance)

"I didn't develop or build synths. I had my technicians modify them for my live stage performances."
- Gary Wright
"The console games, as they come out with this new generation, will have a temporary advantage in price performance, but there are still many things you can do on a PC, more conveniently than you can do on a console machine."
- Will Wright
(Related: Performance, Games, Machine, Will)

"What kind of morons do you have working at newspapers in Austin that would base an entire review of an artist's performance on whether or not they had a good seat?"
- Al Yankovic
(Related: Performance, Artist, Newspapers)

"There was a three hour differential in performances because the sponsor insisted it be done live for California. You would go on at 8 pm in New York but you would also have to go on at 8 p.m. in California. That meant coming back in to do the show at 11 p.m."
- Dick York
"It is something we have always excelled at and prided ourselves at - the excellences of our stage performance."
- James Young
(Related: Performance)

"In 1949 there was a new thing called Television, to which my agency and advisers opposed as a performance medium."
- Loretta Young
(Related: Performance, Television)

"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something."
- Frank Zappa
(Related: Music, Performance, Sculpture)

"To boast of a performance which I cannot beat is merely stupid vanity. And if I can beat it that means there is nothing special about it. What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come."
- Emil Zatopek
(Related: Performance, Nothing, Vanity)

"But I can't say that I didn't like John Hammond's performances often better than the originals."
- Warren Zevon
"Yes, there is plenty of hard work for them in addition to that which they do when they appear, smiling and happy, when the curtain goes up. Giving a performance is the least of their worries."
- Florenz Ziegfeld
(Related: Work, Performance, Giving, Hard work)