Onstage Quotes & Sayings

Back when I was in high school, I came out onstage with my guitar and had four guys playing behind me. We were just playing a dance, but I was standing in front of an audience rocking out. I'm still rocking out like when I was a kid. I haven't changed. — Dion DiMucci

There were times in my career I went a little further than I wanted because of expectations. Doing certain things onstage when children were in the audience, wearing certain clothes, singing certain lyrics. — Cheryl James

Me in my music and onstage - that's me without any fears of judgement; that's me when I'm shining. — Banks

So what if I'm smokin' weed onstage and doing what I gotta do? It's not me shooting nobody, stabbing nobody, killing nobody. It'sa peaceful gesture and they have to respect that and appreciate that. — Snoop Dogg

Queen Latifah used to help me out with my kids, because while we were all out on tour - Public Enemy, Naughty By Nature, Queen Latifah, Heavy D - when Public Enemy went onstage, I didn't have anybody solid to watch my kids. So, Latifah would help me out. — Flavor Flav

Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage. My mother is an Evangelist and I used to play the piano at her revival meetings. — Nina Simone

Onstage, you can be anything you want to be. In concert, I might project a different side of myself, but I wouldn't do anything I'd be embarrassed of. — Stephanie Mills

If I walk out onstage and I get a warm, excited response, it makes me feel so confident and happy, and then it's so easy for me up there. — Martina Mcbride

I design a lot of things that I wear onstage, but I'm always looking for unique stuff. I like creative things, so anything I can find at a secondhand costume shop to a Helmut Lang store, it doesn't matter - just unique stuff. — Amy Lee

It was a choice of making it or still eating chicken onstage. — John Lennon

I was a crazy Pee-wee Herman fan when I was in my early teens. Before he had the kids' TV show, he had a nightclub show in L.A., and I had gotten a VHS copy of it. It was a kids' show, but onstage in a bar, so it's sort of poking fun at the kids' show. And I was obsessed with that, and then 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure.' — Dallas Roberts

I'm not good at interacting with people and am terrified to get onstage, so I just go up there, freak out and, most of the time, pack up and go home immediately after. — Autre Ne Veut

Especially in the Dixie Chicks, everyone wants you to play a role. Natalie was the feisty one. Martie was the nice one 'cause she smiles all the time onstage, and I was the quiet one. — Emily Robison

I'm getting to a point where everything is becoming streamlined in my life. I'm learning how to stand onstage for two hours and play in front of thousands of people as if I am completely in the moment every moment. — John Mayer

A steamer is like an inhaler, so you can inhale this oil or frankincense or eucalyptus. Before I go onstage, I spend half an hour taking in that steam, and it saves my life! — Rita Ora

I was always shy and had a huge fear of being onstage. — Colbie Caillat

When I go onstage, I want to relieve your mind, your pressures. — Bernie Mac

Naturally, she had enemies. Her success, her sex, her racial origin and her bohemian extravagance reminded the puritanical why actors used to be buried in unhallowed ground. And over the decades her acting style, once so original, inevitably dated, since naturalness onstage is just as much an artifice as naturalism in the novel. If the magic always worked for some - Ellen Terry called her "transparent as an azalea" and compared her stage presence to "smoke from a burning paper" - others were less kind. Turgenev, though a Francophile and himself a dramatist, found her "false, cold, affected," and condemned her "repulsive Parisian chic. — Julian Barnes

One of the things I love about the theater is that no one can tell you to stop. Once you're onstage, it's three hours, and whether you're completely off or you're just horrendous, you've got to find a way to leave an impression. There's not that terrible thing that you get when you're making a movie, where you get in your car at the end of the day knowing that something you're not proud of was immortalized on film, and you can't fix it because they won't reshoot it. — Carey Mulligan

When I'm onstage, I'm completely comfortable, and I feel very vital and alive. — Andrew Bird

I think a lot of people think I'm doing kind of a character onstage, but what you're really getting is just me. — Harland Williams

If you want to get known as a singer you hire five sexy chicks and let them fight over you onstage and for the cameras. That's publicity, man. — Sammy Davis Jr.

I'm on a single track here - I work to direct what I want to see onstage. I basically have been feeding my own needs - to be working on a specific project at a specific time, and fortunately more often it works than fails. — Harold Prince

My solo music - I get up onstage, I improvise and it's my improvisation. When I get up onstage with Fred Frith and Mike Patton, then we're improvising together. Then it's not my music; it's our music. — John Zorn

Burlesque girls were alchemists. They were steel-tough performers who were willing to use kitchens as dressing rooms, haul their costume bags through the snow, and go into debt over fake diamonds, all for the five minutes onstage when they were goddesses. — Molly Crabapple

I think sometimes comedians and entertainers and artists, sometimes they get onstage, and it's all for what they want to do. I think you still need to do stuff for the audience. They're the ones who are making it possible. — Frank Caliendo

Dave brought a knife and a gun to a comedy show. Because of a disagreement about whether or not comedy clubs are safe for women. Because the way people talk onstage has no bearing on how they behave in real life. It's — Lindy West

I really liked drama and being in plays, so when I was playing a character onstage and I could act like somebody else, then I wasn't scared or nervous, but I didn't like meeting new people when I had to be myself. That was scary. — Meg Cabot

The Comedy Store in LA, it's a really loose room and it's really dark and creepy and a great place to explore your own thoughts onstage. — Joe Rogan

In real life we don't know what's going to happen next. So how can you be that way on a stage? Being alive to the possibility of not knowing exactly how everything is going to happen next - if you can find places to have that happen onstage, it can resonate with an experience of living. — Sam Shepard

I've always been into guitars ... we want to put keyboards on, but keyboard players don't look cool onstage, they just keep their heads down. There has never been a cool keyboard player, apart from Elton John. — Noel Gallagher

My grandpa was an amateur stand-up comic when I was growing up ... He'd have me come up onstage with him to deliver a punch line: 'Why is your nose in the middle of your face?' 'Because it's the scenter.' — Rachel Bloom

Sometimes, I must admit, I'd like to have a second guitarist onstage with me, but it wouldn't look right. I'd like to play for another 20 years, but I don't know ... I just can't see it happening. I don't know why. It's a certain foreboding ... a funny feeling ... vultures. — Jimmy Page

I'm the most mellow person offstage. I think it's just, going onstage lets me get out some frustration that I'm too shy to do in real life. Instead of doing it in private, I'd rather do it in front of 1,000 people who've paid $25 to see me lose my mind. — Zach Galifianakis

I never used to speak to the audience at all. I never really knew what to say onstage. — Justin Hayward

I really enjoy theater. Performing live onstage is helping me to grow as an actress. — Kim Fields

I'm just a Chicago actor who's a playwright. Even with the success of 'August,' the people in town who come to our theater know me by sight, because they've seen me onstage so much. — Tracy Letts

I was onstage one night and was singing. I hit one note, and I just doubled over. It was like being punched hard in the back. I couldn't put my back up on the plane seat because of the pain. I got massages, thinking it was muscle spasms. The doctor told me at the time that it was my pancreas. I didn't even know. — Sharon Jones

Children go with whatever makes them feel good - like if that's the color green or orange, they do that with their clothes. As I've grown older, everything reversed. My music, my personality - onstage those things became my colors. — Janelle Monae

Performing is my therapy, to become different people onstage. — Britney Spears

My background is a small town with no movie theater. So ... I always pictured myself onstage. I went to acting school and learned all the skills. I left early because I did my first movie and discovered that I really loved the minimalistic work with the camera. — Franka Potente

I knew from the second I stepped onstage. I was like, yep, this is what I want to do. — Demi Lovato

I have never been a different person onstage than I am off. — Gloria Gaynor

His father had smashed his very first guitar for him, in an early attempt to rid Jude of his musical ambitions. Jude hadn't been able to repeat the act himself, not even onstage, for show, when he could afford all the guitars he wanted. He was, however, perfectly willing to use one as a weapon to defend himself. In a sense he supposed he had always used them as weapons. — Joe Hill

I love my lecture tours. I get up onstage. I have my stack of books and a glass of water and a microphone. No podium, no distance between me and the audience, and I just talk to people and get all excited and tell a lot of jokes, and sing some songs, and read from my work and remind people how powerful they are and how beautiful they are. — Suzan-Lori Parks

'Saturday Night Live' is a very particular beast. What it celebrates are individuals who can stand out. I did good work there, but going onstage and saying, 'Hey! Hey! Look at me! Aren't I funny?' - that just wasn't my instinct. — Chris Parnell

I have fun with my clothes onstage; it's not a concert you're seeing, it's a fashion show. — Freddie Mercury

What I wanted to be and who I am is a singer and a songwriter. I wanted to be onstage, and I wanted the world to hear my music. The product of that is fame and the disgusting celebrity that goes along with it. But celebrity does not equal creativity. — Katy Perry

Touring is tough. You're almost in a haze because you don't really know where you are half the time: You're in a hotel room one moment, and the next thing you know, you're onstage performing for 60,000 people, then you're back on an airplane. It's very hectic and I couldn't do it without my family. — Vanessa Hudgens

The stuff I do and say onstage I can do easily. As a performer, that comes easily. But being social offstage, it's not easy for me. — Margaret Cho

I wasn't really the most charming person, socially - it took me a long time to develop my people skills - but the one place I was always comfortable was onstage, acting or singing. — Zooey Deschanel

I'm not saying I look cool, but every single time I go onstage, it is a fail if I don't feel like I'm going to pass out at least twice. — Kesha

I can't presume to speak for the others, but I never felt anything negative from anyone when I was onstage with Television. When I played rhythm behind Lloyd, the only thing that concerned me was to push him as hard as I could so that he'd go beyond what he was capable of and come up with something new, and vice versa. That's the only thing that mattered. — Tom Verlaine

People don't know what it's like standing up there onstage, when you have a wall of people smiling at you. — Dave Chappelle

People think I look odd onstage. But the way I deal with being incredibly nervous is by concentrating really hard. — Laura Marling

Why should we change onstage? We're not trying to be something big and fancy, it's just us, doing what we do, we'd like to keep it that way. — Cliff Burton

But I love the hot sweat. I think overheating onstage is invigorating. It's better than being comfortable. I think being comfortable is the death of a show. — Victoria Legrand

One of the things about crowd work that's so exciting is when you discover a character in the audience who's interesting or funny, who you can vibe off of. If someone's got a weird job that you can make reference to throughout, or you can bring that person onstage - humiliate them, or celebrate them! You can put people in conversation with one another. The best is when something that they're doing can reflect back on something that you're doing. — John Hodgman

I was onstage with Menudo since I was 12 years old. To us, the most successful one was the guy with the most fans. If you moved your hips and the girls screamed, you were getting it right. Who wouldn't want to be like Elvis or Jim Morrison! — Ricky Martin

I love the spontaneity of plays and of being onstage, because that's an energy that you can't really fabricate in movies. — Chloe Grace Moretz

There's a character that I play onstage, and I can't let him loose in the supermarket when I'm buying my beans on toast. — Alex Kapranos

The first state an actor experiences onstage is the one he just experienced in life. One needs great courage not to portray this experience. One must surrender entirely to the power of one s artistic nature. It will do all the necessary things. Do not impose any solution upon yourself in advance. The quality to develop in an actor is courage. — Yevgeny Vakhtangov

I'm too nervous to eat before I go onstage, and I'll usually eat out after the performance or when I get home at midnight. — Jo Brand

I really love being onstage - that's kind of home base - but I love the camera, too. I love it all. — Anthony Zerbe

My size has helped make me an amazing performer too. The cliche of the Funny Fat Friend: I absolutely was that character - I am that character ... It's a complicated bag of tools I acquired, and I've put them all to work onstage. — Beth Ditto

In 2004, I went onstage for the first time. They put a mike in my hand and pushed me out the door into the crowd. I did the three songs I had recorded and got out. It was the worst day of my life. — M.I.A.

I know I stand visibly onstage, but my function is still unseen, because I rarely see the immediate results of what I am saying or doing or writing. — Larry Norman

I was convinced that I was going to be onstage for the rest of my life. — James Callis

Lesbian humor isn't trying to sell anything, it doesn't have to sell out. Coming out as a lesbian onstage is still a very political act; if it weren't, more women would do it. — Kate Clinton

For me, being onstage for an hour and a half, my confidence was really huge for me. Doing eight shows a week for a run, I was like: "I'm actually doing this." And now I feel more confident going into something. — Agyness Deyn

Entitlement is a precarious place from which to create or perform - it projects the idea that you have nothing to prove, nothing to claim, nothing to show but self-satisfaction, a smug boredom. It breeds ambivalence. It's as if instead of having to prove they are something, these musicians prove they aren't anything. It's an inverted dynamic, one that sets performers up to fail, but also gives them a false sense of having already arrived. I don't understand how someone would not push, challenge, or at least be present, how anyone could get onstage and not give everything. — Carrie Brownstein

All the truly great stand-ups say, 'I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work.' To me, in the end, the surest thing is work. — Patton Oswalt

If you can jump up onstage and make people laugh, shouldn't you also be able to inhabit a character? — Eric Bana

I prefer to connect with fans from the stage. Like, I don't have a Twitter page, or anything like that. So for me, that's what the show is about. For me - is a way to interact with fans; being up onstage and showing them, through music - which is all I really know - the best way to say thank you. — Nate Ruess

To me, getting to do music and videos, you work on a character. Being onstage is acting; you get to be larger than life and larger than yourself. — Carrie Underwood

The best day of my life used to be the day I asked you to marry me onstage in Pittsburgh, but as memorable as that was, today has been even better. — Olivia Cunning

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded. — Kristen Bell

I'm not good enough to be playin' much acoustic guitar onstage. Man, you gotta get so right; I mean, the tones, the feel, the sound. Plus, acoustic blues guitar is just that much harder on the fingers. — Johnny Winter

I knew that I could be more creative onstage, to state my own case and deliver my own interpretation of the role much more aggressively than in the recording studio. — Kiri Te Kanawa

It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation. — Etta James

I'm too scared to perform onstage. I'm not very good with big crowds. — Alex Pettyfer

When the Strokes first started playing gigs, instead of getting into a costume for the shows, we talked about how we should dress every day, in real life, like we're playing onstage. I don't really care about clothes, but it's about wearing something that gives you social confidence. Or maybe helps you pick up chicks. — Julian Casablancas

I've got a lot of energy at my shows, I'm very performative; that gave me the idea, I want to try to translate that into a musical project, having the same energy I have onstage and on my album. — Lunice

The crowds treat me like my last name. When I go onstage people usually stand up, I never ask them to, but they do. They stand up and they don't know how much I appreciate it. — B.B. King

I loved 'Matilda.' The kids are so brilliant and uninhibited. They were inspiring. Seeing them onstage, just going wild, reminded me of when I was that age. I was excited for them and completely taken by their innocence and hard work. — Matthew James Thomas

As far as guys who perform onstage, I love Chris Rock. I'm kind of jaded on everyone else. — Gabriel Iglesias

I think the inception of my interest in arts was when I was around 9 or 10 and I started dancing. I was really convinced that I was going to go to New York and be onstage in 'A Chorus Line.' — Robin Wright

My parents called me the WB frog. Because when I was onstage, I would do this whole song and dance, but if my parents had a family friend over, I would just go hide in the bedroom. — Brie Larson

I laugh all the time - at things, people, stuff, whatever. But, I don't laugh onstage because then it's serious business. — Steven Wright

Whenever I go to shows, I end up looking at what shoes the guy onstage is wearing and the jacket he's got on. And when you know everything's gonna be under scrutiny, it makes you feel more comfortable if you have cool stuff. — Julian Casablancas

People only speak to get something. If I say, Let me tell you a few things about myself, already your defenses go up; you go, Look, I wonder what he wants from me, because no one ever speaks except to obtain an objective. That's the only reason anyone ever opens their mouth, onstage or offstage. They may use a language that seems revealing, but if so, it's just coincidence, because what they're trying to do is accomplish an objective. — David Mamet

My dad loves to be talked about, good or bad. He just loves it. He's not even hearing the content, he's just hearing him. When I'm onstage, he's looking at the audience members and can't believe that there are strangers listening to me, and he's just delighted by the whole thing. — Sarah Silverman

But even so, I still get nervous before I go onstage. — Etta James

My strength as an actor is in the theater - I know that about myself. Some actors get onstage and vanish, but I'm much better there than I am on screen. — Stacy Keach

Being in a recording studio is a very different feel from performing onstage. I mean, obviously, you can't just go in and do what you would do onstage. It reads differently. — Megan Hilty

When I first started, I was really nervous. You could hear my voice quiver. So I started drinking a bit and that helped. A lot of entertainers have a few drinks before going onstage and don't overdo it. Me, it turned into a bigger habit. But I stopped that. I was getting older, and I was thinking about my kids. There's enough roadblocks out there without throwing in more yourself. — Tim McGraw

It's hard for a person to try to keep his stuff together being nominated for something and then performing onstage. — Juicy J

The body cannot lie. You cannot be somebody else onstage, no matter how good of an actor or dancer or singer you are. When you open your arms, move your finger, the audience knows who you are, you know. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Good comics gravitate to each other; you know who's your type of person by watching them onstage, hopefully. — B.J. Novak

For the fact was drugs were not necessary to most of us, because the music, youth, sweaty bodies were enough. And if it was too hot, too humid to sleep the next day, and we awoke bathed in sweat, it did not matter: We remained in a state of animated suspension the whole hot day. We lived for music, we lived for Beauty, and we were poor. But we didn't care where we were living, or what we had to do during the day to make it possible; eventually, if you waited long enough, you were finally standing before the mirror in that cheap room, looking at your face one last time, like an actor going onstage, before rushing out to walk in the door of that discotheque and see someone like Malone. — Andrew Holleran