Best Performance Quotes & Sayings

When you see a comedian on stage, the best comedians make it feel like a conversation. But it's not. We have very little interest in what an audience has to say during a performance. Being a stand-up comedian, you're an egomaniac to some degree. Everyone wants to hear what you have to say, apparently. That's not how real relationships work. — Hari Kondabolu

The old saying has it that when we promote our best salesman and make him a manager, we ruin a good salesman and get a bad manager. But if we think about it, we see we have no choice but to promote the good salesman. Should our worst salesman get the job? When we promote our best, we are saying to our subordinates that performance is what counts. — Andrew S. Grove

As long as I give the best performance I can give, I know I can't do any more. — Ella Henderson

You become like that, what you admire most. By admiring excellence and practicing, it can boost you to become excellent. — Mark LaMoure

You know that this vignette and that vignette belong side by side, you know that a certain turn of phrase you've been saving will probably work best within a given section of the narrative. As in a jazz performance, writing lives or dies by what's produced in that moment. But that moment is attended by long preparation. — Teju Cole

You may be a well-educated, clever and virtuous person, but those qualities will not necessarily make you a successful businessman. You must give your best to each and every task you take on, and reflect on your performance with an honest and unprejudiced eye. — Konosuke Matsushita

David Fincher is probably the best comprehensive director in terms of being a manger of a process that must drive forward. He has such confident command of cinema language and visual language and script and performance. He knows more about f-stops than any cameraman, he knows more about lighting than any gaffer, he is a wonderful writer, and he can give you a good line reading. Under pressure, he is the kind of guy who you will just dive in with and trust and follow because his vision is so intense. — Edward Norton

I consider that my best performance ever was as Peer Gynt. — Leo McKern

Morphlabs is excited about the OpenStack release of Essex. We believe that this release positions OpenStack to become the foundation for next generation dynamic cloud infrastructure. We are building a fully-converged private platform around Essex, leveraging best-of-breed cloud building blocks to deliver a high-performance, flexible solution. This release marks a major a proof point of OpenStack's commitment to open community development and pluggable APIs, which benefits the entire cloud ecosystem. — Winston Damarillo

I was the worst extra, I was 'that' guy. I was the guy on the phone trying to get the Oscar for best extra - for best background performance. — Jon Favreau

There is only one person with whom to compete and that is yourself. Keep aiming to surpass your own best performance and ever strive to reach higher levels. — Norman Vincent Peale

Do the best you can. But I want to emphasize that it be the very best. We are too prone to be satisfied with mediocre performance. We are capable of doing so much better. — Gordon B. Hinckley

I learned that I was either crazy in love with you, or putting on the best performance of my life. — Becca Fitzpatrick

Professor Irwin Corey had some of the best timing in the world, and that is something you can't steal. He talked nonsense, not punch-lines, per se. It was a great performance thing he did and his timing was impeccable. Pat Paulsen was a master of comedy too. The Smothers Brothers' strength was not in the content, but how it was said. We had a couple of our albums, including the Purple Onion album, translated in script form. It didn't work at all. It is no wonder that writers had a hard time writing for the Smothers Brothers, because they wrote impressions, but there was something else. — Tommy Smothers

Recordings of Georgian folk polyphonic songs makes a great musical impression. They are recorded in a tradition of active reproduction of Georgian folk music the origin of which begins from ancient time. It is a wonderful finding and can give to the performance much more than all the modem music can ... Yodel or "Krimanchuli" as it is called in Georgia is the best song which I have ever heard. ["America" magazine, No 23 1967] — Igor Stravinsky

I have been doing this since I was nine years old. So whatever the role is, I am going to do the best I can do. The only thing I am concerned with is stepping on the stage in front of that camera and giving the best performance I know I can give, day in and day out as an actor. — Darius McCrary

I think Broadway is good for sharpening your skills. It's the best for really reaching the zenith of your talent. You go so far and reach the peak of it and you say, "Maybe this is the best performance I can do." — Michael Jackson

The director's job is to know what emotional statement he wants a character to convey in his scene or his line, and to exercise taste and judgment in helping the actor give his best possible performance. — Stanley Kubrick

Executives must place a priority on wellbeing if they want to attract the right people, keep their best people, and drive their company's financial performance. — Tom Rath

I tend to lose my performance energy the longer things go on for, so I'm always best on the very first take. — Peter Sarsgaard

If you have a grateful heart (which is a miracle amongst you statesmen), show it by directing the bearer to the best wine in town, and pray let not this highest point of sacred friendship be performed slightly, but go about it with all due deliberation and care, as holy priests to sacrifice, or as discreet thieves to the wary performance of burglary and shop-lifting. Let your well-discerning palate (the best judge about you) travel from cellar to cellar and then from piece to piece till it has lighted on wine fit for its noble choice and my approbation. — John Wilmot

The issue of finding the best possible answer or achieving maximum efficiency usually arises in industry only after serious performance or legal troubles. — Steven S. Skiena

Having gone through editing process, I can see that in actor's faces there's point where they're not managing their performance and that's, I think, the best place to be. You've done the homework, you've learned the lines, at that point you just sort of let it out. — Ralph Fiennes

Humans are built to move. We evolved under conditions that required daily intense physical activity, and even among individuals with lower physical potential, that hard-earned genotype is still ours today. The modern sedentary lifestyle leads to the inactivation of the genes related to physical performance, attributes that were once critical for survival and which are still critical for the correct, healthy expression of the genotype. The genes are still there, they just aren't doing anything because the body is not stressed enough to cause a physiological adaptation requiring their activation. The sedentary person's heart, lungs, muscles, bones, nerves and brain all operate far below the level at which they evolved to function, and at which they still function best. — Mark Rippetoe

On my best days, such as when I was a junior in high school coming off a 42-point performance and near triple-double, my dad was there to tell me I haven't arrived yet and bring me back to reality. — Candace Parker

During the songs, you transcend yourself. The best way to be in the performance is to be without pause and be essentially in the moment, in that moment of expression. — Florence Welch

Done right, a performance review is one of the best opportunities to encourage and support high performers and constructively improve your middle- and lower-tier workers. — Kathryn Minshew

The best way to improve mental performance, is to improve physical performance — Tim Ferriss

It had been drilled into us that when an audience pays to see a performance, it is entitled to the best performance you can give.Nothing in your personal life must interfere, neither fatigue, illness, nor anxiety
not even joy. — Lillian Gish

Now things have changed for the better. Our reforms end seniority and tenure so we can hire and fire based on merit and pay based on performance. That means we can put the best and the brightest in our classrooms - and we can keep them there. — Scott Walker

It is tragic to have to realize that the best I had to give as a soldier, obedience, and loyalty, was exploited for purposes which could not be recognized at the time, and that I did not see that there is a limit set even for a soldier's performance to his duty. That is my fate. — Wilhelm Keitel

I definitely wanted to pay homage to what he did and use his performance in the first one as a foundation. But, I had to make it my own. I couldn't sit there and try to imitate Michael Clarke Duncan. I think that would have been disastrous. I had to make it my own. I tried to take as many nuances that he had with the character and utilize them as best I could, while creating a character that was unique to me. That's going to happen, no matter what. — Dennis Haysbert

Chris Chandler is the best performance poet I have ever seen. — Utah Phillips

As a manager you know when someone is below his or her usual performance. What is harder to know is whether people are giving everything they have to give. Asking whether people are giving their best gives them the opportunity to push themselves beyond their previous limits. — Liz Wiseman

I think we all have a similar philosophy about comedy and comic performance which is that it's at its best when you can see the pleasure the performer has, when you can see a glimmer in the eye. — Mathew Baynton

The major difference between the 'best' and the 'average' is that the 'best' get as much pleasure from practice as performance. — Benjamin Zander

I think if you talk to the experts in any field where you have to take on a unknown challenge, where you're going to be working on it for a long time you'd find that to work themselves up to their best performance and really throw themselves into it, you know, spend all these hours in there and ah, give it their ... give it their best that optimism plays a role. — Bill Gates

I've always thought that when anyone receives an award for acting they should always thank their fellow actors, because the only way you're going to deliver your best performance is when you have other good actors on the set supporting you and being very present for you even when the camera is not on them. — Halle Berry

And at the same time, you are of course a performer, but it's very important that you understand that your role as a performer is to get the best performance from those wonderful colleagues that you have the chance to work with. — Michael Tilson Thomas

If you mess up the tiniest little thing in the Beethoven concerto, or the phrasing isn't just exactly perfectly executed, Beethoven brings out the worst in the best violinist. You almost never hear a satisfying performance, because it doesn't play itself. — Joshua Bell

Any designer believes his gun is the best, and when its test performance is a bit less impressive compared to others, he feels bitterness and envy. — Mikhail Kalashnikov

YOUR BEST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH.
That sounds harsh, and indeed it is. But having worked with the best of the best over the last two decades, I've learned what it takes to be the best.
Anyone can hit excellence for a day, even a week or a month. That's easy. But a high performer is one who does it consistently for years over the course of a career.
You can be talented, work hard, and do all the right things, and it might not be enough. Not anymore. These days, performance is about results. It's not just showing up every day, working hard, and doing the right things. That's great. That's expected. Performance is about showing up every day and hitting the bull's eye regardless of the situation. — Mark Verstegen

Shutting people down creatively often doesn't get the best performance out of them. — Seth Rogen

In acting, you are fulfilled if you give justice to your role ... if you are able to do a credible performance and touch the audience. Same with directing. If you are able to draw out the best from your actors, then you fulfill your job as a director. — Timothy Hutton

Sometimes the best way to bring good news to the poor is to bring actual good news to the poor. It appears a good way to bring relief to the oppressed is to bring real relief to the oppressed. It's almost like Jesus meant what He said. When you're desperate, usually the best news you can receive is food, water, shelter. These provisions communicate God's presence infinitely more than a tract or Christian performance in the local park. They convey, "God loves you so dearly, He sent people to your rescue. — Jen Hatmaker

When we perform at our highest level of potential, we are content. Because we have given I best in what we enjoy doing. — Ellen J. Barrier

Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated. — James C. Collins

I don't really like to arrange shows by best performances. That's why Emmy season is kind of a chore for me. Unlike movies, where it's easier to decide who was the best performance, a TV show goes up and down, including characters/portrayals. — Hank Stuever

I was driven to give the best possible performance I could based on the material that was given to me and that material was documentary footage of the President speaking to people. — Timothy Bottoms

This year I spent two months in Australia, and I did all the training camps in London. It was a really hard winter because I want to give the best performance of my career at the Olympic Games! That is the only title I'm missing and I will do my best to take it! — Peter Kauzer

Although traditional incentives such as bonuses or recognition can prod people to better performance, no external motivators can get people to perform at their absolute best ... Wherever people gravitate within their work roles, indicates where their real pleasure lies - and that pleasure is itself motivating. — Daniel Goleman

you give your best for today, you create a greater tomorrow. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Noah, from 'The Young Lions' (1958), was the best performance of my life. I couldn't have given more of myself. I'll never be able to do it again. Never. — Montgomery Clift

More people than ever are being paid to think, instead of just doing routine tasks. Yet making complex decisions and solving new problems is difficult for any stretch of time because of some real biological limits on your brain. Surprisingly, one of the best ways to improve mental performance is to understand these limits. In act 1, Emily discovers why thinking requires so much energy, and develops new techniques for dealing with having too much to do. Paul learns about the space limits of his brain, and works out how to deal with information overload. Emily finds out why it's so hard to do two things at once, and rethinks how she organizes her work. Paul discovers why he is so easily distracted, and works on how to stay more focused. Then he finds out how to stay in his brain's "sweet spot." In the last scene, Emily discovers that her problem-solving techniques need improving, and learns how to have breakthroughs when she needs them most. — David Rock

The best kind of performance review is no performance review — Aubrey Daniels

Everything comes back to the horse, which is why I love it. You put your ego aside, and you concentrate on getting the best performance out of this creature. — Edie Campbell

Mitch
"
"All right, baby, I'll shut you up."
Then he did, his head slanting and his lips taking mine in a repeat performance of the open-mouthed, knock my socks off, rock my world, best kiss in the history of all time. — Kristen Ashley

You must showcase your work, achievements and performance in the best possible manner. — Abhishek Ratna

Past performance really did seem to be the best indicator of future performance. — Maggie Stiefvater

In a field you're already familiar with - like your own job - think carefully about what characterizes good performance and try to come up with ways to measure that, even if there must be a certain amount of subjectivity in your measurement. Then look for those people who score highest in the areas you believe are key to superior performance. Remember that the ideal is to find objective, reproducible measures that consistently distinguish the best from the rest, and if that ideal is not possible, approximate it as well as you can. Once — Anders Ericsson

If there were an Oscar for best theatrical performance by a country, Israel would win every year. It's a country based on theater. It's a lunatic state - completely insane. — Norman Finkelstein

You create a blueprint of your best performance, and you're happiest the night you surpass that blueprint. That won't happen that often, but it will happen. It's like sculpting: you keep refining. When you have a piece that is yours, that is just you, that becomes obsessive; you think about it all the time. — Kenneth Cranham

I was cocky and arrogant when I was younger. I thought that if I delivered a good performance, and put my best foot forward, that would be enough to get people's attention. So in my naivety, I cut my legs off at the knees, because I didn't realize that oftentimes it doesn't matter about the performance ... it's the media that creates stars. — Bokeem Woodbine

The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event. — Edward Gibbon

Although we can't control which roles are assigned to us, it must be our business to act our given role as best we possibly can and to refrain from complaining about it. Where ever you find yourself and in whatever circumstances, give an impeccable performance. — Epictetus

The best way to improve children's performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it. — Tara Parker-Pope

We make every effort to bring the newest and most innovative technology to our enthusiastic customers, drawing on the best in the industry. Our collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies on the Snapdragon 810-powered Mi Note Pro provides us the ability to deliver more performance, features and user capabilities to a mobile device than ever before. — Lei Jun

Your performance depends on your people. Select the best, train them and back them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. If errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on. The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House. — Donald Rumsfeld

I can speak to actors in their terms. Knowing I was an actor, they relax. You can have the best shot in the world - but, at the center of it, you still need a good performance. — Don Scardino

The best visual effects are when you shoot as much of what you can in camera. And it's really good for the actor's performance to have something real. — Rob Letterman

But from morning to night Anne was with the king, as close to his side as a newly wed bride, as a chief counselor, as a best friend. She would return to our chamber only to change her gown or lie on the bed and snatch a rest while he was at Mass, or when he wanted to ride out with his gentlemen. Then she would lie in silence, like one who has dropped dead of exhaustion. Her gaze would be blank on the canopy of the bed, her eyes wide open, seeing nothing. She would breathe slowly and steadily as if she were sick. She would not speak at all. When she was in this state I learned to leave her alone. She had to find some way to rest from the unending public performance. She had to be unstoppably charming, not just to the king but to everyone who might glance in her direction. One moment of looking less than radiant and a rumor storm would swirl around the court and engulf her, and engulf us all with her. When — Philippa Gregory

Make peace with the fear of defeat ... Fear holds you back from putting forth your best performance. — Brian Stann

We are all actors, set on the stage of the world, as the curtains open we put on our best performance to this audience of life. — Anthony Liccione

I am trying to give the best performance possible in 400 pages. I want readers to be scared; I want them to be moved. Entertainment doesn't necessarily mean something trivial, but it does mean people wanting to get to the end of a book. — Mark Billingham

If we're talking about brain performance, the best predictor of brain speed is aerobic capacity - how well you can run up a hill is very strongly correlated with brain speed and cognitive shifting ability, — Hal Elrod

Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery. — Nicolas Chamfort

A lot of directors want to storyboard you, whereas the best way to get a performance out of an actor is a collaborative process where you listen to the actor's input. — Jacki Weaver

I really love watching the 70s live performance TV series "The Midnight Special" and "The Old Grey Whistle Test". Those are the best performances you've ever seen, and they sound incredible. — Feist

I owe the public a good performance, the best I can give. We really bust our chops on 'CHiPs' but when I go home and get a weekend off, I want to spend it quietly, with my lady. — Larry Wilcox

People have said some really good things about my performance, and that's what I'm happy about, what I'm excited about. I was able to go out there, and like I said, I put my best foot forward. — Robert Griffin III

The best illusions aren't a matter of technology, but of performance. First, you open the minds of the audience. Then you fill them with exactly what you want them to know. — Dan Koboldt

All I have is my performance, I try to feed in the best of everything that I could possibly do into those 90 minutes and to make a live entertainment show out of it. — George Thorogood

A company at the top of its game has accumulated a number of rules of thumb - implicit assumptions and beliefs about what has been central to its success. New technologies and business models belie or change some of those assumptions, but they only seem sensible if the management team can become aware of those implicit assumptions and mind-sets and suspend them for a moment to contemplate the change. It's very hard to do that with the inherited wisdom, experience, and lore of a company. This is why the failures of incumbents to capture the benefits of disruptive innovations are a result not of bad managers, but of good managers practicing what they have done best. Incremental innovations can quickly be scaled and incorporated. Disruptive innovations require changes in customer sets, business models, or performance metrics that are no longer consistent with what led to success in the past. — Stefan Heck

There is something about me that is collaborative, that wants to get the best performance out of somebody else or to hear something that somebody else has done that's good and to try and make it great. — Ryan Lewis

We do what we can, and then make a theory to prove our performance the best. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Has given it life? Why do you allow some of the earliest images to which your child is exposed to be images of violence? Who told you this was good for your children? And why do you hide images of love? Why do you teach your children to be ashamed and embarrassed of their own bodies and their functions by shielding your own body from them, and telling them not to ever touch themselves in ways which pleasure them? What message do you send them about pleasure? And what lessons about the body? Why do you place your children in schools where competition is allowed and encouraged, where being the "best" and learning the "most" is rewarded, where "performance" is graded, and moving at one's own pace is barely tolerated? What does your child understand from this? — Neale Donald Walsch

The structure of a jazz performance is, like that of the New York skyline, a tension of cross-purposes. In jazz at its characteristic best, each player seems to be - and has the sense of being - on his own. Each goes his own way, inventing rhythmic and melodic patterns which, superficially, seem to have as little relevance to one another as the United Nations building does to the Empire State. And yet the outcome is a dazzlingly precise creative unity. — John A. Kouwenhoven

The best thing about the term 'performance artist' is that it includes just about everything you might want to do. — Laurie Anderson

Just as one might do useful work without fully understanding the job one was engaged in, or even what the point of it was, so the behaviour of devotion still mattered to the all-forgiving God, and just as the habitual performance of a task gradually raised one's skills to something close to perfection, bringing a deeper understanding of the work, so the actions of faith would lead to the state of faith.
Finally, she was shown the filthy, stinking, windowless cell carved into the rock beneath the Refuge where she would be chained, starved and beaten if she did not at least try to accept God's love. She trembled as she looked at the shackles and the flails, and agreed she would do her best. — Iain M. Banks

The best performance advice I have ever been given was to "Know where your light is, onstage." — Vaginal Davis

But it wasn't a performance was it, Godfrey." God figured it wasn't a question so he didn't answer. He simply stared the man in his eyes until he spoke again. "I think I'd know your response if I told you that I don't let couples partner together in my precinct." The captain leaned forward. "After what I witnessed today; you'd probably tell me to kiss your ass and no doubt Day would follow suit, and then I'd lose the best damn narcotics detectives in Georgia." The captain looked hard at him and pointed a thick finger in his direction. "If — A.E. Via

Words are harsh mistresses, to be sure. Like petulant divas, they want only those parts that play to their talents and mask their blemishes, and only when complete companies of players who love their parts are assembled will they sing in harmony. I am your director for this stage production and will employ my best wiles to create a performance both truthful, and beautiful. I know that words are tricksters who show one face to you and another to me, so I am never certain you'll hear in your head what I hear in my head. Since I deliver even this little truth with words, I acknowledge the irony. — Dennis Vickers

Past experience with fiscal austerity at home and overseas strongly suggests that it is best for the economy's long-run performance to restrain government spending rather than raise taxes. — Mark Zandi

Benchmark your performance against your best competitors. Think how you can beat them next time. — Brian Tracy

One of Eric's most basic rules is sort of a golden rule for management: Make sure you would work for yourself. If you are so bad as a manager that you as a worker would hate working for you, then you have some work to do. The best tool we have found for this is the self-review: At least once per year, write a review of your own performance, then read it and see if you would work for you. And then, share it with the people who do in fact work for you. This will elicit greater insights than the standard 360-degree review process, because when you are initiating criticism of yourself it gives others the freedom to be more honest. — Eric Schmidt

When you try hard to do your best, the effect on your performance is often to jinx it. — Patricia Ryan

I feel like at the Olympics I gave the best performance of my life and I wasn't rewarded for that as an athlete. Yes, my fans and my mom were happy about it, but I didn't win that gold medal. — Johnny Weir

The team behind 'The Lego Movie' approached me. They wanted to do something extra special for the Academy Award performance of best song nominee 'Everything is Awesome.' They had seen my earlier version of a Lego Oscar statue, and I was happy to take on the challenge. — Nathan Sawaya

While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best. — Samuel Johnson

The past three decades have witnessed unprecedented growth in what researchers now term ultimate human performance. This is not the same as optimal human performance, and the difference is in the consequences. Optimal performance is about being your best; ultimate performance is about being your best when any mistake could kill. Both common sense and evolutionary biology tell us that progress under these "ultimate" conditions should be a laggard's game, but that's not exactly what the data suggests. — Steven Kotler