Quotes About Performance

always followed, so far as I could see, the principle that military commanders should not be judged by results, but by the quality of their effort.

It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how music should be played.

Since I've written quite a number of songs for my plays, I would like to be nominated for a Grammy

If a passage occurs twice it is played slower the second time; if three times, still slower.

The organ is in my eyes and ears the king of all instruments.

I was absolutely determined to leave. They wouldn't let me. They wanted me to give a concert; I wanted them to beg me. And so they did. I gave a concert.

Las cosas no se dicen, se hacen, porque al hacerse se dicen solas!.

I had decided to delight the audience by playing my soprano saxophone for their delectation (years later, a music critic would describe my playing at a concert as "excruciating").

soprano saxophone for their delectation (years later

There are millions of comedians around or certainly there were when I started. They play nightclubs, or on TV, or at private functions, and they all need material: jokes, bits, routines, something to say. Most of them were not very good as evidenced by the fact that they needed other people to put words in their mouth, funny words. If left on their own, they couldn't coax a chuckle from a manic fat man on laughing gas.

The only criticisms I have are that, one, many are gratuitously dirty. Remember, I'm saying gratuitously. I don't mind dirty when it contributes to the funny routine, but since language was liberated in the sixties, it's embarrassing to hear acts punctuate their material with the old so-called dirty words. Apparently, the

Where did all these thirsty comics come from? I never knew a monologist to keel over from dehydration. Actors play hours of Shakespeare without Hamlet or Lear sneaking behind a drape for a belt of Poland Spring water.

I wrote one single joke for Don Adams. Jonathan Winters needed nothing from anyone; he was simply a genius.

I think I can safely say I'm the only American stand-up comic who played the Eiffel Tower.

Dianne Wiest, Julie Kavner so terrific

que esto de ser copy es lo más parecido a ser vedette: no eres así que digas bailarina, pero bailas; tampoco eres cantante, pero cantas; menos aún actriz, y sin embargo actúas.

Since "the society" has no future, it makes sense to live only for the moment, to fix our eyes on our own "private performance," to become connoisseurs of our own decadence, to cultivate a "transcendental self-attention.

Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them.

Poetry is not a silent art. The poem must perform, unaided, in its reader's head.

Distance running demands a brain-body connection that no other creature is capable of.

There's a more glaring giveaway that boxing and wrestling are just recreation: girls and old guys aren't good at them. As a rule of thumb, performance aberration in a basic skill is a good way to evaluate whether it's natural to a species. When you spot a giant ability gap between ages and genders, you know you're looking at nurture, not nature.

Unlike any other organism in history, humans have a mind-body conflict: we have a body built for performance, but a brain that's always looking for efficiency.

as shoes wore down and their cushioning thinned, runners gained more foot control.

Think of these runs as dance rehearsals rather than exercise: your goal is to master moves and rhythm, not just bash out distance.