Quotes About Versatility

He had painted it himself, for he knew how to do a little of everything—badly.

Wie wird das eigentlich mit der Sprache?" fragte die Prinzessin, als wir im Zug nach Helsingör saßen. "Du warst doch schon mal da. Sprichst du denn nun gut schwedisch?" »Ich mache das so«, sagte ich. »Erst spreche ich deutsch, und wenn sie das nicht verstehn, englisch, und wenn sie das nicht verstehn, platt - und wenn das nichts hilft, dann hänge ich an die deutschen Wörter die Endung as an, und dieses Sprech-as verstehas sie ganz gut.«

A man cannot please long who has only one kind of wit.

I don't want to make niche-oriented music.

He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.

It's funny, because in drama school, my greatest strength was my range. So my early career was like that: I played all kinds of different characters.

Shadowhunters were brought up to handle anything, weren't they?

You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has come to chat. One doesn't behave at all the same way to a grandfather as to a bosom friend, to a professor as to a curious niece.

Geography was fungible, fluid, unreliable.

F]or all its reputation for conservatism, cricket in its history has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for innovation. What game has survived subjection to such extraordinary manipulations, having been prolonged to 10 days (in Durban 70 years ago), truncated to as few as 60 balls (in Hong Kong every year), and remained recognisable in each instance?

I've always been sort of addicted to genre-jumping. I've never been in the mood to do the same thing I did last time. Hence, me going from 'Big Love' to romantic comedy, to period film... I can't sit still.

So, I became a chameleon ... [a]nd after a while I hardly knew what I really felt and thought because I became so good at adapting.

My computer kept beating the pants off me at chess, until I discovered that it was no match against me at kickboxing.

Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

then it occurred to him that a worthy man dedicates himself not to one particular thing which attracts him, but to all tasks; and he

The most successful people are those who are good at plan B.

IMPROVE YOUR APPROACH. You keep getting rejected in bars? Find a different place, where the odds aren't stacked against you. Nobody responding to your networking e-mails for "Ten minutes of your time please?" Then offer something. Give something for free so people immediately see value in your approach immediately. You keep cold-calling customers and they hang up? Find a different way to get distribution. CHANGE UP, DON'T GIVE UP.

It's a skill to navigate uncertainty.

Some days I'm Uncle Situation, other days I'm Dr. Situation, I'm Chef Situation.

The same way you can see me sit at a table in a movie and be six different people, the mother and the uncle and all these different things, when I'm in the studio, I can do that, too. I'm not trying to be a recording artist and have a certain type of music for the radio.

I don't think I could compare myself to Macaulay Culkin, because we're pretty much two different kinds of actors. He's done a lot of comedy. He does mostly just comedy like 'Uncle Buck' and 'Home Alone' and 'Home Alone 2.' And I've done a lot of different stuff, like sad movies, like the movie about the kid with AIDS.

I was never the most technical; I was never the best at one aspect at this sport, but what I was always good as was negating people's strengths and putting them in terrible situations where they're uncomfortable.

I feel as comfortable anywhere as I feel uncomfortable anywhere.

I have an uncomfortable groove, 'cause I have a lot of different kinds of stories to tell.