Performance Quotes

The principle element in a performance is risk, and if you're losing interest then by scaring yourself to death the audience will feel it and boy it'll wake them up.

I like working with an actor who doesn't do the oneupmanship. One who has no trick and gives a true, honest performance.

Ninety per cent of how you learn is watching great people. When you are surrounded by good actors it lifts your performance.

I'm not saying that more performance wouldn't be better - all these technologies are going to get better - that's the difference between first generation and second generation.

In the theater, you go from point A to point Z, building your performance as the evening progresses. You have to relinquish that control on a film.

I think it's healthy for a person to be nervous. It means you care - that you work hard and want to give a great performance. You just have to channel that nervous energy into the show.

After I did Untamed Heart I wanted to do a film that was outrageous. I really wanted to do, you know, a performance. I don't want to allow my image to rule the choices that I make.

Yes, there is plenty of hard work for them in addition to that which they do when they appear, smiling and happy, when the curtain goes up. Giving a performance is the least of their worries.

To pay out millions upon millions of dollars in bonuses for incomplete work, poor performance, and unacceptable products is the height of government waste and mismanagement.

Mutual fund managers are trapped in this rather deadly vicious circle: the more successful they are, the more money flows into their mutual fund. Then, it is more difficult for them to beat the market averages or even to match their own past performance.

If I produce it, I will stage it as a performance. A small audience will be invited; rehearsals of the sections will be done in the mornings, and those sections will be recorded in the afternoons.

So I'm one of the few celebrities that got to do a repeat performance on 'The Simpsons,' which I'm very flattered by.

Royalties are not how most writers or musicians make their living. Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales.

The time has come to return integrity, performance and dignity to New York and make it the Empire State once again.

I'm worried because of my mother, she's going to see my performance and she's quite hard. She's going to see me naked. And my Dad, woah. Yeah, they're going to see me like a woman, you know?

My last public performance for money was in 1967. For free, it was 1972, with the exception of two little one-shot, one-song things. But that's just for friends, out of friendship for the people involved, and also because it was fun.

You have your structure, but within it, it gets fuller and you can highlight other parts of the performance.

The true measure of the value of any business leader and manager is performance.

The eating of burning brimstone is an entirely fake performance.

An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.

I love doing theater so much - being in front of an audience and seeing how a character grows and develops with every performance.

Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Nonperformance can always be explained away.

I've worked with actors before where I was like, this is not working, and then I've seen their work on the screen and I've been like, Wow, that was a really great performance. Because there are a lot of elements with film. It's not like stage. It's not a kind of performance art anymore; it's a highly tuned kind of collaboration - a symphony.

The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I'd have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade.

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.

Comedians work great as actors because they're good under pressure. With a lot of actors, you have to make them feel like everything's going really well to get a good performance out of them. But, if you have a comedian on the set, you can tell them, 'Hey, you really are screwing this up,' and then they just get better.

Some books claim I have already clocked up a century of Grands Prix, but let me put the record straight. Australia will be my 100th start, and I aim to mark the milestone with a cracking performance. It could even be celebrated with a victory.

To pay 60 musicians for rehearsal and performance is quite something, and I decided I wouldn't be able to handle that kind of situation financially again, unless somebody else was taking care of that end of it.

It was 1975. I had spent the year at the Boston Museum School doing some very bizarre performance works. The last one included going to the North Magnetic Pole and spending all of my money.

The president's poking fun at himself over what goes down. I thought it was a good-natured performance. It made him look good. But he certainly doesn't disguise the record on weapons of mass destruction. And you feel like saying to people, Just get over it.