Quotes & Sayings About Performers

I thought that maybe it is not so much, as he seems to think, that the world loses interest in female performers after they hit a certain age, than the performers lose interest in the world. — Lara St. John

My folks were country music performers. They made records and even did a few tours with the Grand Ole Opry. There always were a lot of guitarists around. — Lenny Breau

But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands. — Michael Tilson Thomas

Exceptional performers are masterful opportunists, keenly alert to opportunity! — Brian Tracy

Mark Twain was so good with crowds that he became, in competition with singers and dancers and actors and acrobats, one of the most popular performers of his time. It is so unusual, and so psychologically unlikely, too, for a great writer to be a great performer, too ... — Kurt Vonnegut

I think most performers are just lazy. — Aaron Watson

As performers grow older, I reckon there are two ways they can go. They can either be up there, playing more deeply from their guts than ever, or they can be phoning it in so crassly that it leaves a lump in your throat as you leave the venue at the end of the show. — Henry Rollins

What would people think of a tradesman, that was to give a ball in his shop, hire performers, and hand refreshments about, with a view to benefit his business? — Jean-Baptiste Say

These performers that go on about their technique and craft - oh, puleeze! How boring! I don't know what 'technique' means. But I do know what experience is. — Elaine Stritch

Performers had to be transparent. Diva behavior was rendered difficult or impractical - the physical situation would have made it look silly. The performers were obliged to interact and mingle with their audience. — David Byrne

I think Elvis loved his fans - I think that's why they loved him and still love him. Fans are very conscious and sensitive to the fact that performers love them. — Minnie Pearl

I still insist that American performers are the best performers in the world. — Tony Bennett

It's very advantageous to be sensitive with your work - and, yet, being sensitive, in reality, when criticized, it can annihilate you. It can destroy you. And with the internet there sometimes is a lot of harm, which I find must be very difficult for youngsters coming on - it can be very harsh; the criticism. And, sometimes, it can be a little cruel - which makes it hard for young performers coming on. — Michael Crawford

Film is a collaborative art form. I don't know why you wouldn't recognize the stunt performers. — David Leitch

People who are great thinkers, in science or in art, people who are great performers, have to have that kind of capacity. Without that kind of capacity, it's extremely difficult to manage a high level of performance because you're going to get a lot of extraneous material chipping away at the finery of your thinking or the finery of your motor execution. — Antonio Damasio

There are two types of people, two types of performers: Performers who know how to keep a show going literally when the power is gone and performers who haven't had that much experience and will panic and freak out and don't know what to do. — El-P

I feel like people used to leave their homes and go to their local theatre, and they used to watch ballet dancers and musical theatre performers and tap dancers and orchestras and dog acts. You had to leave your home, be in the presence of other people, know how to behave, and enjoy the human being whose beating heart was in front of you. — Laura Benanti

It bothers me when people say, 'Oh, you're so down to earth - for an actor.' Even when they don't say 'for an actor,' I feel like that's the implication. Why are the standards so low for performers? — Jake Gyllenhaal

I think for me, as far as cooking, some of it came naturally just from watching my dad. My dad was more of the cook than my mom was, so it's just handing it down from generation to generation. I just love to cook and have fun. And as performers, we love to cook, and we love to entertain people. — Joey Fatone

If you read reviews of concerts, the word 'creative' comes up all the time. However, performers playing music usually aren't creative. Critics might say they are, but they're just playing another persons work. They didn't create it. — Ned Rorem

In the scientific community you find competent teachers and original researchers, just as in the musical community you find many good performers but very few good composers. — Mario Bunge

My goal is to work. That's the goal of most actors or performers: to work and keep working, and do the best you can, and keep growing and changing, trying to improve your craft. — Michael Ian Black

It is possible to become world-class, enter the top 5% of performers in the world, in almost any subject within 6-12 months, or even 6-12 weeks. — Timothy Ferriss

It's actually good when the performers are nervous, because it kind of sharpens up your brain and a little bit of adrenaline is good. Initially it's really tough. — Brian Henson

I have more contact with people who consume, for lack of a better word, my product than any other performers. — Penn Jillette

Patrick thought we should try to put an audience in front of one of the workshops, basically in front of the class and see how the performers rose to having an audience there, because he said, "You know, it's a really interesting test, because sometimes it gets even funnier." — Brian Henson

There are plenty of actors who've caught the singing bug and vice versa, but with musical performers, you're constantly a persona - which is something I love about acting: you play a character, you leave and you get to be yourself again. — Freddie Stroma

Laughing made me feel safe. I was not going to be enveloped by the seediness that coated this world like dust. — Joan Rivers

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

Except in a very few matches, usually with world-class performers, there is a point in every match (and in some cases it's right at the beginning) when the loser decides he's going to lose. And after that, everything he does will be aimed at providing an explanation of why he will have lost. He may throw himself at the ball (so he will be able to say he's done his best against a superior opponent). He may dispute calls (so he will be able to say he's been robbed). He may swear at himself and throw his racket (so he can say it was apparent all along he wasn't in top form). His energies go not into winning but into producing an explanation, an excuse, a justification for losing. — C. Terry Warner

I wandered the sidewalk watching all the street performers doing their juggling acts, playing their musical instruments, busting their asses to avoid work. I liked that. But I wanted to tell them there were easier ways to avoid work, like cab driving. — Gary Reilly

All the world's indeed a stage
And we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another's audience outside the gilded cage — Neil Peart

Annabhau Sathe's Akalechi Gosht (The Dimwit's Tale) performed in front of the temple. This had also been banned. We did not know when the police would arrive and arrest the performers. This satire was like no other we had seen; it had no kings and queens. It spoke of the exploitation we saw around us, offering an aesthetic analysis of our situation. It played all night and we learned some new songs. 'Daulatichya raja, utoon Sarjya, haak de shejaaryaala re, shivari chalaa' ('Oh kings of wealth, Sarjya, wake up, listen to what your neighbours say, let's go back to the fields') and 'Aamhi dhartichya lekra bhaagyavaan' ('We are the fortunate sons of the earth'). — Daya Pawar

We talk about how we think, believe, suspect Michael Jackson treats children. We don't talk about how WE treat child stars. Child stars are abused by the culture. And what's more treacherous than when the rewards of child stardom issue from the abuse?
Child stars are performers above all else. Whenever their triumps, they are going to make sure we see everyone of their scars. That's the final price of admission. — Margo Jefferson

It can only be hoped that the overwhelming factual (not anecdotal) evidence presented herein will arouse conductors and performers of all stripes to rededi-cate themselves to serving, rather than using, the art of music - espousing the notion and principle that a great composer's creations ought to be inherently respected and cherished. Perhaps one could then supplant the motto "nobody gives a damn about the composer" with the more benign, gracious - and simple - "all for the composer. — Gunther Schuller

Peak performers develop powerful mental images of the behavior that will lead to the desired results. They see in their mind's eye the result they want, and the actions leading to it. — Charles Garfield

Hollywood studio executives don't recognize the value of female performers as much as male performers. — Anna Faris

[As a kid] I felt it was really weird that music schools behaved like a conveyor belt to make performers for those symphony orchestras. If you were really good and practiced your violin for a few hours a day for ten years you might be invited to this VIP elite club. For me music was not about that. It is about freedom and expression and individuality and impulsiveness and spontaneity. It wasn't so Apollonian; it was more Dionysian. — Bjork

Comedy is a funny thing, and it's really not like any other art form in that it's very specialized and varied in it's content, but generic in it's title. You would never go to a club just to see "Live music," you would go to a jazz club to see jazz, a blues club to see blues, etc. But when you go to see "standup comedy," if you don't know the performers material, you really don't have any idea what you're gonna get. — Joe Rogan

Elvis is iconic; a lot of performers today look to that for inspiration. — Beyonce Knowles

Tragedy's language stresses that whatever is within us is obscure, many faceted, impossible to see. Performance gave this question of what is within a physical force. The spectators were far away from the performers, on that hill above the theatre. At the centre of their vision was a small hut, into which they could not see. The physical action presented to their attention was violent but mostly unseen. They inferred it, as they inferred inner movement, from words spoken by figures whose entrances and exits into and out of the visible space patterned the play. They saw its results when that facade opened to reveal a dead body. This genre, with its dialectics of seen and unseen, inside and outside, exit and entrance, was a simultaneously internal and external, intellectual and somatic expression of contemporary questions about the inward sources of harm, knowledge, power, and darkness. — Ruth Padel

I believe a lot in the relationship between performers. When you're supported by someone's eyes, you're not alone. — Clemence Poesy

Getting to the top should be a priority, but being aware of the reason for getting there should be the focus! — Israelmore Ayivor

Great performers require a measure of confidence that would strike many as absurd, unfounded, and downright irrational. They believe in themselves utterly, without question, even when everyone else is questioning how good (or sane) they are. — John Eliot

As an actress, I think it's important to look back and realize that we aren't always quite as original as we think we are. There's this grand, textured history for us over the last 100 years of incredible writers, directors, and performers. — Natalie Dormer

When I got lucky with Dean, I ended up with 16 years with one of the truly great performers of all time. He was the greatest performer I'd ever been around, bar none. — Greg Garrison

To others we are not ourselves but performers in their lives cast for a part we do not even know we are playing. — Elizabeth Bibesco

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

Bands today have to learn their craft by putting the hard work in that we did when we were young performers. — Elton John

I don't think we should really be judging on Chris Brown like that until we know what Rihanna did. We all got reasons for what we do. Look at me. I'm one of the top 10 performers of all-time. I had to beat this one mermaid ass in a seafood restaurant over some shrimps. No lie. You just never know. — Coolio

Vanity is normal in performers. Does it bother other people? All the time. But nine times out of 10, that says more about them than you. — Tom Hardy

I love fierce performers. — Ella Eyre

Sometimes, there's a preconceived notion of how a scene or how a work should be delivered. And I see young performers sometimes try and deliver that, and it's not really true to their voice or who they are. — Christian Camargo

All dance has expression. If there is no expression, I prefer the circus. The performers do more dangerous, more difficult technical things than we do. But we are dancers. We have to express and we have to project. — Luis De La Fuente

I have always had an interest in performers who play against the most obvious of expectations and are able to find something secret, something withheld, and some level of restraint. — Todd Haynes

Honestly, I just love great performers and people who love what they do. — Zendaya

He was always saying, 'I wonder what Paul is doing.' When John and I were together, and this is about a week or two before our relationship ended, I remember him saying, 'Do you think I should write with Paul again?' I said, 'Absolutely. You should because you want to. The two of you as solo performers are good, but together you can't be beaten. — May Pang

There are some strong female performers out there. But the industry's pre-occupation with the packaging of how a woman looks has gone completely the other way, back to almost the 60s, early 70s. — Siouxsie Sioux

Pop songs are not as graceful as they used to be. Performers today haven't gone through the regimen of learning how to write. And of course, everyone wants to own copyrights. — Hal David

The firing of nerves in the amygdala, thereby dampening fear. Laughter, then, can help to temper negative emotions. And while all this might seem of purely academic interest, it could prove helpful when your partner breaks his leg at 19,000 feet in a blizzard on a Peruvian mountain. It is not a lack of fear that separates elite performers from the rest of us. They're afraid, too, but they're not overwhelmed by it. They manage fear. They use it to focus on taking correct action. Mike Tyson's trainer, Cus D'Amato, said, Fear is like fire. It can cook for you. It can heat your — Laurence Gonzales

Authority never matches responsibility. That's one of the great myths and delusions of all times. Winning managers and individual performers at all levels know that effectiveness means building your own network and creating your own authority. Those who succeed always reach far beyond formal deputation, take initiatives, and take the heat when things go awry. That's true in the military in times of war, true for 200 person manufacturing firms, and true at giant automakers or software companies. — Tom Peters

Johnny Depp, as far as I'm concerned, is number one. Of his generation, there's no one who can touch him. Some performers, today, it's like looking at holes in the air. — Christopher Lee

When I see someone not performing, I am frank enough to tell the person that it's not working out. I request him or her to leave or change jobs within the group. But I see many of our senior colleagues, including my brothers, sons and nephews, empathetic towards non-performers. They don't want to face the issue. They tend to become comfortable with such people and they get protection. They tend to choose people who become personally loyal to them rather than to the company. I think it's important to be professional about such matters. Protecting a non-performer is not good for the business and also the person being protected. This is unprofessional too. The non-performer may be in the wrong job and thus not doing what he or she is best at doing. Empathy that results in protection would lead to a negative result for the employee as well. He or she might be better off in another job within the group or elsewhere. — Subhash Chandra

I feel that the work that I have done in the comedy arena, is priceless in terms of what I learned, timing, everything that these incredibly talented performers were generous enough in teaching me. — Khandi Alexander

A lot of guys get slammed pretty hard. I do think there's a tendency with women performers to just sort of write them off. The "Flavor of the Month" kind of thing. Or as a novelty, because I do think women in bands are still considered a novelty, or a little confection. — Nina Gordon

I'm completely unlike a lot of other performers in the past who have been forgiven or come to terms with the real world because they tell everyone their performance is 'just a show.' And so, people say, 'Oh, it's OK then. We don't care. He's not really a bad person.' It's not just a show for me. It's my life. — Marilyn Manson

If there's one big thing you can take from Amy Poehler as a performer, it's committing, full on. — Andy Daly

I wouldn't specifically say rock n' roll is dead, but I don't see a lot of charismatic performers in the way of new blood who are edgy and dangerous on stage, like Marilyn Manson, who you never quite know if he's going to make it through his own show. — Tommy Lee

To others we are not ourselves but a performer in their lives cast for a part we do not even know that we are playing. — Elizabeth Bibesco

Part of the Hong Kong style is the fact that a lot of the performers can perform the moves, and we don't over-rehearse this stuff. — Daniel Wu

Spirituality means, among other things, taking ourselves seriously. It means going against the cultural stream in which we are incessantly trivialized to the menial status of producers and performers, constantly depersonalized behind the labels of our degrees or our salaries. — Eugene H. Peterson

Canada has given us John Candy and Martin Short and Bill Shatner and Lord knows how many other wonderful performers. — Jamie Farr

Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers. — Les Baxter

I was so fortunate to sing and work with so many amazing performers and artists. — Rayvon Owen

Possible explanations for talented language learning fall into two general areas. One view says: What matters is a person's sense of mission and dedication to language learning. You don't need to describe high performers as biologically exceptional, because what they do is a product of practice. Anyone can become a foreign-language expert - even an adult. (...) The other view says: Something neurological is going on. We may not know exactly what the mechanisms are, but we can't explain exceptional outcomes fully through training or motivation. — Michael Erard

I don't have the desire that I think a lot of performers feel - to get the applause. It's not life or death for me. I love it and it's exciting, but it's not something I crave or miss, so I don't need to perform; I don't have that desire. I like to sing, and I love doing what I'm doing, but it's not a dire need. — Olivia Newton-John

Your assets are your employees. Invest more on those performing well. Let the non performers go. — Manoj Arora

Top performers understand their field at a higher level than average performers do, and thus have a superior structure for remembering information about it. — Geoff Colvin

There have now been many studies of elite performers - international violinists, chess grand masters, professional ice-skaters, mathematicians, and so forth - and the biggest difference researchers find between them and lesser performers is the cumulative amount of deliberate practice they've had. Indeed, the most important talent may be the talent for practice itself. — Atul Gawande

Three of tonights performers are members of the group Return To One, whose album Hopes and Dreams I heard for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Blown away by the album, I called Nathan Hubbard, the drummer and composer for the group, and with whom I've played on a couple of Trummerflora-related occasions, and asked him to round up several of his Return To One cohorts for tonight's show. I can't recommend their album highly enough; please pick up a copy ... — Mike Keneally

Due to a combination of dispositional characteristics and personal performance histories, functional performers typically expect positive performance outcomes, and dysfunctional performers typically expect negative performance outcomes. Over time, these beliefs become strongly held and difficult to change. In addition, these belief sets can become self-fulfilling because they affect how the performer interprets challenge or threat in performance situations (Sbrocco & Barlow, 1996). For — Frank Gardner

'Center Stage' reached people that, as live performers, we would have never had the opportunity to reach. — Sascha Radetsky

Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are in my opinion more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate sexuality. Freedom of speech, freedom of religious thought, and the right to due process for composers, performers and retailers are imperiled if the PMRC and the major labels consummate this nasty bargain. — Frank Zappa

I don't think that many performers necessarily want to see their audience empowered. I think a lot of performers, no different from priests, need the hierarchy. Modern, celebrity-driven entertainment turns the stage into an altar, and so many celebrities refuse to be removed from those altars once they manage to ascend. They will not be taken down - the Goddess is offended ... As a storyteller in the old tradition, you held an important place at the circle. Your position was fluid, not necessarily permanent, but it demanded that you respected the others witnessing your performance as much as they respected you. All storytellers, all troubadours worth their salt knew their myths. — Tori Amos

It's so cliche, but I love the feeling you get from improv that anything can happen. The audience is already accepting that there are no props or costumes or furniture, so the performers can be anywhere doing anything; cut from underground to space, and it doesn't matter. — Andy Daly

In some organizations, they can succeed if they are simply good at making presentations to the board of directors or writing strategies or plans. The tragedy is that these talents mask real deficiencies in overall management capabilities. These talented performers run for cover when grubby operating decisions must be made and often fail miserably when they are charged with earning a profit, getting things done and moving an organization forward. — Tom Peters

The act of creation fascinates me. You can only sit with blank page and wait. You cannot press a button, cannot program it. — Joan Rivers

Ordinary performers have giant TVs. Extraordinary performers have huge libraries. — Robin Sharma

I always was a performer, from the time I was little. It was always a natural place for me to be. — Billy Crystal

Back in the 1970s, I ate a high-protein diet to get bigger and stronger. As a senior at Utah State, I weighed 218 pounds with eight percent body fat, and threw the discus over 190 feet. Then I got some advice from the people at the Olympic Training Center. I needed carbs, they advised, and lots of them. They pointed to studies done on the American distance runners. Being an idiot, I took the advice to eat like emaciated, over-trained sub-performers. It took years of high carbohydrate grazing to learn the evils of this advice. — Dan John

I was not intrigued with the accouterments of success and fame, the furs, jewels, expensive automobiles and mansions ... I can assure you that these things were not on my mind when I sat spellbound in that Pozzuoli movie house. It was what these performers on the screen were doing, not what they received for doing it. — Sophia Loren

Songwriters aren't always performers, and even performing songwriters aren't always the kind of show-biz performers you think they'd be. — Lyle Lovett

The best results come when people believe in and feel strongly about the music they are playing. Just as composers write for certain types of performers, performers are also looking for certain things. — Michael Hersch

I've always called myself a writer/performer, not an actor because I basically write what I perform. — John Cleese

Performers are never more unpredictable than when they're full of adrenaline and failure. — Gwenda Bond

There are artists, true performers that have come before me who have been a big inspiration to me. I hope I do the same for others. — Janet Jackson

If you look at the world-class performers at the top of the game, their numbers are just exceptional and that is the level he is at. — Brendan Rodgers

Most people don't understand performers are really sheltered and protected so much sometimes that they don't get a chance to live their lives. — Diana Ross

Miss Dietrich is not so much a performer as a one-woman environment. — Vincent Canby

It's so interesting, you know, whenever you read the accounts of composers playing their own music, that they had very different priorities than performers. None of them seemed too concerned about the plastic realization of their music. — Helene Grimaud