Quotes About Performance

They controlled it so tight -- they told those Negroes what time to hit town, how to come, where to stop, what signs to carry, what song to sing, what speech they could make, and what speech they couldn't make; and then told them to get out town by sundown. And everyone of those Toms was out of town by sundown. Now I know you don't like my saying this. But I can back it up. It was a circus, a performance that beat anything Hollywood could ever do, the performance of the year.

There is small risk a general will be regarded with contempt by those he leads, if, whatever he may have to preach, he shows himself best able to perform.

To quote a dictum of Simon, what a horse does under compulsion he does blindly, and his performance is no more beautiful than would be that of a ballet-dancer taught by whip and goad.

When a horse wants to display himself...he lifts his neck up high and flexes his poll haughtily, and picks his legs up freely, and keeps his tail up.

Why do panda bears bore you?" "Since they're born wearing such impressive makeup, they don't make any effort to be interesting. They neither master any stageworthy tricks nor write autobiographies.

Once, somebody asked Robert Schumann to explain the meaning of a certain piece of music he had just played on the piano. What Robert Schumann did was sit back down at the piano and play the piece of music again.

Sometimes, comics will make the observation that it's not jokes that are funny, it's characters that are funny. And isn't that true! That's why I always kill jokes. I'm terrible at them, because I get the joke right, but I can't get the character right, and it just goes down like a lead balloon.

Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you're getting.

She glanced at the other diners, all of them going into their act, and thought is this what it all boils down to? Romantic love, is this all it is, a talent show?

and most importantly of all, don't let the audience intimidate or goad you in any way. Interaction is great. Retaliation is not. Don't let them rile you. Don't give them that satisfaction.

A well-run restaurant is like a winning baseball team. It makes the most of every crew member's talent and takes advantage of every split-second opportunity to speed up service.

Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.

Pay peanuts and you get monkeys.

Rosser Reeves: 'Do you want fine writing? Do you want masterpieces? Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve start moving up?

Pay peanuts, says Jimmy Goldsmith, and you get monkeys. I

ROSCO: I haven't been happy with my part, Bunny. It's totally underwritten. Just listen to that last line, for instance! Who could do anything with "It's totally underwritten?" Where's the heart in a line like that? Where's the character?

I know I had my equivalents in Adrian Lester and Lenny James when I was at drama school. I remember David Harewood doing 'Othello' at the National, and Adrian Lester having done Cheek by Jowl's famous 'As You Like It and Company' at the Donmar. Not necessarily performances I saw, but just the fact they happened was massively encouraging.

The one variable that clearly stood out above all others was whether or not the mice had a running wheel. It didn't matter if they had things to play with in their cages. The animals that exercised were the ones who had healthier brains and outperformed on the cognitive tests.

And although we are presently ranked first in the world in health-care spending, we are ranked thirty-seventh in overall health-system performance, according to the World Health Organization,2 and twenty-second in life expectancy among the thirty developed countries.

But even a wonderful soloist needs a song. Even a pitch-perfect voice needs a message.

To Dewey, if brevity was the soul of wit, stagecraft was the very center of politics.

Jack had an actor's control." Chuck Spalding

Suffering is to cyclists what poll data are to politicians; they rely on it to tell them how well they are doing their job.

It was Frankie Lymon all over again," Marvin said. "Only this kid had mastered James Brown's moves. Michael was like Stevie. From the very beginning, he worried me.