Quotes About Performance

Sigur, eu sunt un clovn amuzant pentru o dup?-amiaz?, dup? care toÈ›i se satur? de mine pentru o lun? întreag?.

And my fear of failure has been lifelong and deep. If you are what you do- and I think my parents may have accidentally given me this idea- and you do poorly, what then? It's over; you're wiped out. All those prophecies you heard in the dark have come true, and people can see the real you, see what a schmendrick you are, what a fraud.

While others who have something to say or who want to be effectual, like musicians or baseball players or politicians, have to get out there in front of people, writers, who tend to be shy, get to stay home and still be public. There are many obvious advantages to this. You don't have to dress up, for instance, and you can't hear them boo you right away.

A gitar for Menolly? So we can judge the range of sounds she can make?

Runcorn was second fiddle, never first, but he had played the more beautiful tune.

It isn't what you feel, it's what you do that counts.

Actors and actresses make magic,' I said. 'They make things happen on the stage; they invent; they create.

It was from Dionysus, the wine god, that the theater came.

She had already turned. She watched him in amazement as he made his way slowly across the lawn and into the house. Pandora stepped back for him, and we all watched in respectful silence as he sat down near the piano, his back to the front right leg of it, and his knees brought up and his head resting wearily on his folded arms. He closed his eyes. Sybelle, I asked, would you play it for him? The Appassionata, again, if you would. And of course, she did.

Beethoven's Ninth. I played the torture part. I played the Second Movement.

What more perfect guise for a vampire, I thought, than that of a rock musician?

I will give you a little hint," Emma said with a wry smile. "A whore's trick, but a good one. It's a part that you're playing, like a grand actress on the stage. It isn't you. It has nothing to do with you. You're simply using your body in service to something necessary. You can smile and flirt and dance and pretend you're someone entirely different, and it won't matter. You, the real you, will still be safe inside.

A hint: perhaps in this case, you should refrain from throwing the book at the audience when you finish.

Nobody contrived for Stevie to be a foxy chick. It just emerged. She moves and dances purely because she likes dancing. But she has a split personality. Onstage she's the goddess of whatever, but offstage she's very often like a little old lady with a cold or a sore throat. Yet she's amazing—she can feel like shit before she goes onstage but then she goes out there and pulls out the stops.

We're deaf men working as musicians; we play the music but we can't hear it.

A brilliant author or businesswoman or senator or software engineer is brilliant only in tiny bursts. The rest of the time, they're doing work that most any trained person could do.

There are fewer and fewer good jobs where you can get paid merely for showing up. Instead, successful organizations are paying for people who make a difference and are shedding everyone else. Just

Sometimes, we're so focused on being consistent that we also lower the bar on amazing.

The web has made kicking ass easier to achieve, and mediocrity harder to sustain. Mediocrity now howls in protest." The

Organizing around the average, then, is too expensive. Organizing around average means that the organization has exchanged the high productivity of exceptional performance for the ease and security of an endless parade of average performers. The

Excessively criticize the work of your peers, thus unrealistically raising the bar for your work.

Earning trust outperforms earning envy.

Or win by being faster

Organizing around average means that the organization has exchanged the high productivity of exceptional performance for the ease and security of an endless parade of average performers.