Quotes About Performance

A sold-out house my first night back. Do you have any idea what kinda pressure that is? I could have been at home in my warm bed, playing Nintendo.

The fears that assault us are mostly simple anxieties about social skills, about intimacy, about likeableness, or about performance. We need not give emotional food or charge to these fears or become attached to them. We don't even have to shame ourselves for having these fears. Simply ask your fears, "What are you trying to teach me?" Some say that FEAR is merely an acronym for "False Evidence Appearing Real." From Everything Belongs, p. 143

If you work at comedy too laboriously, you can kill what's funny in the joke.

Here you are on the TV, saying Watch me, just watch me.

In a word, in a phrase, it's a movie, you're the star, so smile for the camera, it's your big scene, you know your lines.

A director is a general in charge of an army of traitors like any showman. An audience will love you, laugh with you and wait outside your stage door when you're hot and on a roll, but no audience is ever truly friendly. Not for long. Bore 'em or disappoint 'em - even once - and they'll turn on you and tear you to pieces, regardless of who you are or might once have been.

An author, when he first appears in the world, is very apt to believe it has nothing to think of but his Performances.

Opera has always been my chief emotional release. Along with sex, of course.

Never look encouragingly at the brass, except with a brief glance to give an important cue.

Die menschliche Stimme ist das schönste Instrument, aber es ist am schwierigsten zu spielen.

Everybody feels oppressed during a Wagner performance. That is part of the appeal.

efficiency is doing the job right, effectiveness is doing the right job.

Mangement Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail*

They all blur together these days—the smell of manure and buttered popcorn, urine and cotton candy, hay and innocence. He wrings his hands again and then stands up. Bob hobbles over to the corner, goosebumps rippling across his flesh, and he begins to wash off the cloud of white, his costume of the day, the way he is able to meander through any festive occasion with hardly a worry—balloons in hand, a smile on his face, knots twisting in his gut, blood filling his shoes.

The thing I do, really, is a communication with audiences more than any achievement through records.

To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.

Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.

The French idea of playing an instrument well is to be able to SING well upon it.

Der Gesang ist die in höchster Leidenschaft erregte Rede: die Musik ist die Sprache der Leidenschaft.

Horne, J. A., & Minard, A. (1985). 'Sleep and Sleepiness Following a Behaviourally Active Day'. Ergonomics, 28, 567–75.

Telling a child that they are intelligent might make them feel good, but it can also induce a fear of failure, causing the child to avoid challenging situations because they might look bad if they are not successful. In addition, telling a child that they are intelligent suggests that they do not need to work hard to perform well. Because of this, children may be less motivated to make the required effort, and so be more likely to fail.

Everything's about my personal entertainment. The world is my stage. Keep it up- you're becoming a star performer in the show.

He'd barely seen me coming, and despite the horribleness of what I'd just done, I kind of wished one of my instructors had been there to grade me on such an awesome performance.

I'd seen him fight before, but it never got old. He was captivating. He never stopped moving. Every action was graceful and lethal. He was a dancer of death.