Onstage Quotes

You don't get to know anybody in a movie until after it's over. You work less together in a film than you do onstage. ~ Al Pacino

I challenge myself everywhere, onstage, on the golf course. Hey, isn't that the point of it all? To keep getting better? Otherwise why do it? ~ Hal Linden

I've never liked watching real-life couples play couples onscreen or onstage. It takes me out of the story. ~ Antonio Banderas

The more I go onstage, the more quiet I am before, because I intend to go onstage and slaughter. ~ Nikki Sixx

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 never get embarrassed on stage. Never. Never, because if you fall right on your ass it doesn't matter. I've fallen over onstage numerous times, and you always just kind of go, "oh well" and get back up. ~ Johnny Borrell

I expect if you're a professional public speaker, you probably wouldn't want to go onstage and sing and play drums. ~ Neil Peart

In my stand-up, I've always been loose. If there's a curtain onstage, I'll use that in my act. If there's a door, I'll use the door. I always like to use everything at my disposal, which makes each show a little different and a little more fun. ~ J. B. Smoove

Naturalness onstage is just as much an artifice as naturalism in the novel ~ Julian Barnes

I loved Roy Acuff with all my heart, and I never dreamed I'd be able to meet him or see him onstage, or especially become good friends with him. For all this to happen, it's hard to explain what a dream this is when you love something as much as I love traditional country music. ~ George Jones

Pure entertainment is not an egotistical lady singing boring songs onstage for two hours and people in tuxes clapping whether they like it or not. It's the real performers on the street who can hold people's attention and keep them from walking away. ~ Andy Kaufman

I still have my eyes on the prize: I want to be that old lady onstage shaking her hips and singing her greatest hits. ~ Christina Aguilera

Because I killed a guy in real life, and because my character kills a guy onstage, they said I could never do anything this great again. I resented that. ~ Charles S. Dutton

I love to sing and I really love to write, but in terms of being onstage, I'm not that comfortable, which I think is sort of clear. ~ Lana Del Rey

I've been singing properly every day since I was about fifteen or sixteen, and I have never had any problems with my voice, ever. I've had a sore throat here and there, had a cold and sung through it, but that day it just went while I was onstage in Paris during a radio show. It was literally like someone had pulled a curtain over it. ~ Adele

I haven't had that many people onstage for a while, and I'm looking forward to that. They're all such creative musicians in their own right. They're all complete individuals. They're not just a pick-up band. They all have their own thing going on. ~ Andrew Bird

It's good to be playing one and a half hour again. In the States we played like an hour and when you got onstage it felt like all of a sudden you are already done your set. But now, it feels like we are touring again. ~ Kerry King

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

I get terrible butterflies. Before I go onstage, I'll have to freak out for five minutes. I scream. It seems to help! ~ Josh Groban

I nod to the other will grayson, up onstage. he nods to me. we have something between us, him and me. but the truth? everybody has it. that's our curse and our blessing. that's our trial and our error and our it. the applause continues. i look up at tiny cooper. he may be heavy, but right now he floats. ~ David Levithan

I do secret stand-up shows around New York. I announce and tweet this to nobody - I get onstage and I do a quick five minutes. ~ Questlove

A life being enacted onstage is a thing of utter fascination for me. And acting, it may begin out of vanity, but you hope that it's taken over by something else. I hope I've climbed over the vanity hurdle. ~ Joseph Wiseman

I continue to be very shy. I think a lot of actors and performers are really weird, shy people working it out onstage. I don't know why that is. ~ Samantha Bee

I do miss sometimes being onstage, because when I do film and television, it's usually so brief and funny. ~ John Michael Higgins

In public, I like real conservative clothes, something that's not too flashy. But onstage, I like 'em as flashy as you can get 'em. ~ Elvis Presley

I'm pretty much an open book. I've pretty much talked about anything I'm going through onstage. Between interviews and curious fans, I've been asked everything. And I always give answers. I don't shy away from anything. ~ Kevin Hart

I'm just not going to tour. One point I want to get across to everybody is that I'm still going to make records and I may still do some events. It's not the last time I'm onstage. It's been a part of my life for too long to quit everything. I have done it since the '80s, and I think it's time now to maybe see if I can live without that part. ~ George Strait

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

I have to stay hydrated so I don't pass out onstage! ~ Carrie Underwood

When I'm onstage, I hope it looks like what I want to see - the lights, the pyro, the band. ~ Nikki Sixx

He hit the circuit in 1917 as 'Frank Fay, Nut Monologist,' and resistance was immediate. Variety critically stated, 'Fay needs a good straight man, as before, to feed his eccentric comedy.' A comedian standing alone onstage? Unheard of. Doesn't this guy know anything about showbiz? To stand still and tell jokes was a foreign move. To perform without some kind of gimmick was considered amateurish. ~ Kliph Nesteroff

The most memorable night of The Judy Garland Show for me was the night my mother pulled me out of the audience and sang to me onstage. ~ Lorna Luft

He is tangled in Isabelle's arms, he is curtained by Isabelle's hair, he is touching Isabelle's body, he is lost in Isabelle, in her smell and her taste and the silk of her skin.
He is onstage, the music pounding, the floor shaking, the audience cheering, his heart beating beating beating in time with the drumbeat.
He is laughing with Clary, dancing with Clary, eating with Clary, running through the streets of Brooklyn with Clary, they are children together, they are one half of a whole, they hold hands and squeeze tight and pledge never to let go.
He is going cold, stiff, the life draining out of him, he is below, in the dark, clawing his way to the light, fingernails scraping dirt, mouth filled with dirt, eyes clogged with dirt, he is straining, reaching, dragging himself up toward the sky, and when he reaches it, he opens his mouth wide but does not breathe, for he no longer needs to breathe, only to feed. And he is so very hungry.
He is sinking his teeth into the neck of an angel's child, he is drinking the light.
He is bearing a Mark, and it burns.
He is raising his face to meet the gaze of an angel, he is flayed by the fury of angel fire, and yet still, impudent and bloodless, he lives.
He is in a cage.
He is in hell.
He is bent over the broken body of a beautiful girl, he is praying to whatever god that will listen, please let her live, anything to let her live.
He is giving away that which is most precious to him, ~ Cassandra Clare

When I come onstage, I'm exploding. ~ Dick Dale

It's hard 'coz you have got different time zones; you can't sleep and y'know, it's boring way for the show to happen, but you do off the stage. Y'know, onstage it's all better. ~ Kerry King

If I'm off the stage after two or three years I get itchy and I have to get back onstage. ~ Edward Herrmann

You know, I think whatever a comic talks about onstage is all they talk about offstage. ~ Sarah Silverman

I just enjoy being onstage and relating to the audience. ~ Idina Menzel

Jack stepped onstage dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt.
"I'm the handsome Butterboy," Jack announced. "I'm the queen's soul mate. I just don't know it yet because I'm emotionally immature. Sorry, Conner."
Conner was so embarrassed, he sank into his seat and covered his face with his backpack. Trollbella was sporting a wide grin - this was her favorite part of the show. Red struck a theatrical pose with her hands over her heart.
"Be still my heart, for I am in love!" Red announced.
"Now, Peter!" Trollbella whispered.
Peter soared out from backstage and flew in circles over the audience. The children laughed and clapped - they reached up and tried to touch him. Conner was irritated by how much they were enjoying the show.
"Hello, Butterboy!" Red said to Jack. "Would you like to be my king and rule the trolls and goblins with me? Oh, how happy we will be together!"
"Oh boy, that sounds wonderful!" Jack said. "How lucky I am to be loved by such a beautiful and brilliant troll queen. I will never find someone like her ever again - nope, not once, no how, no way, not going to happen! I want to be with Trollbella for all eternity!"
"I never said that!" Conner shouted from his seat. "She's making this up! ~ Chris Colfer

When you're onstage, you're acutely aware of the reaction of a particular group of people, because it's like a wave. ~ Cate Blanchett

Although I'm a lead guitarist, I'd say that a good 95 percent of my time onstage is spent playing rhythm. ~ Kirk Hammett

I can't believe how much time has passed. The first time I did stand-up I was 17, and I was really a stand-up once I was 19 in New York, and now I'm 41, and I still feel like I haven't found myself onstage. ~ Sarah Silverman

The music is key. It has the power to transport you. I go from being a slightly insecure, shy kind of a person offstage, to this super-confident, motivated, entity onstage. ~ Neil Diamond

It's my turn next, and I realize then that I never turned in the name of my escort--because I hadn't planned on being here. I glance around wildly for Ryder, but he's nowhere to be seen, swallowed up by the sea of people in cocktail dresses and suits.
Crap. I thought he realized that escorting me on court was part of the deal, once I'd agreed to go. I guess he'd figured it'd be easier on me, what with the whole Patrick thing, if I was alone onstage. But I don't want to be alone. I want Ryder with me. By my side, supporting me.
Always.
I finally spot him in the crowd--it's not too hard, since he's a head taller than pretty much everyone else--and our eyes meet. My stomach drops to my feet--you know, that feeling you get on a roller coaster right after you crest that first hill and start plummeting toward the ground.
Oh my God, this can't be happening. I've fallen in love with Ryder Marsden, the boy I'm supposed to hate. And it has nothing to do with his confession, his declaration that he loves me. Sure, it might have forced me to examine my feelings faster than I would have on my own, but it was there all along, taking root, growing, blossoming.
Heck, it's a full-blown garden at this point.
"Our senior maid is Miss Jemma Cafferty!" comes the principal's voice. "Jemma is a varsity cheerleader, a member of the Wheelettes social sorority, the French Honor Club, the National Honor Society, and the Peer Mentors. She's escorted tonight by…ahem, sorry. ~ Kristi Cook

I remember acting in a school play about the melting pot when I was very little. There was a great big pot onstage. On the other side of the pot was a little girl who had dark hair, and she and I were representing the Italians. And I thought: Is that what an Italian looked like? ~ Al Pacino

Okay, so how, exactly, did I get into this mess - up onstage at a comedy club, baking like a bag of French fries under a hot spotlight that shows off my sweat stains( including one that sort of looks like Jabba the Hutt), with about a thousand beady eyeballs drilling into me? ~ James Patterson

It's always been impressive to me when someone can really do what they want onstage. The audience has confidence in the performer and the performer has confidence in the crowd. ~ Henry Rollins

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 find with television, you have to play personality, whereas onstage, everyone talks about 'the character,' and what you do. It's a very different thing, because stage is much bigger, but on television, for things to come across to the public, I think you have to play a bit of your personality. ~ John Barrowman

I'd like to sit down with Hillary Clinton onstage and ask her about Glass Steagall and all the big banks and her own campaign contributions. ~ Eileen Myles

Approval isn't necessary. It's nice when you get it, but it's not going to stop us from being who we are. I mean, if I'd have listened to approval, I'd never have made it one day onstage. But to be criticized, if there's validity, as upset as you are, you can learn from it. ~ Jared Leto

You don't need to exorcise your personal demons onstage. ~ Jimmy Kimmel

I play loud onstage for my own benefit as I like. But I'm not too fond of the P.A. either. ~ Kerry King

The whole deal is when you walk onstage, you're up there bigger than life. People idolize you. ~ Stevie Ray Vaughan

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

How do you top 'Mormon?' I get sent scripts all the time and I don't know what I would do next. What do you do after that? So I think if you do see me onstage, you'll see me in something dramatic, maybe, or you'll see me try my hand at something else. Perhaps fail, terribly, but try. ~ Josh Gad

Onstage, I find absolutely nothing but exhilaration in not talking. ~ Teller

I'm glad I've given up drugs and alcohol. It would be awful to be like Keith Richards. He's pathetic. It's like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go onstage and look young. ~ Elton John

Mick Jagger is one of the greatest athletes who ever lived, just for how much he puts into it onstage. ~ Axl Rose

We're at the opening of the Globe." She thought back to Daniel's words under the peach trees at Sword & Cross. "Daniel told me we were here."
"Sure,you were here," Bill said. "About fourteen years ago.Perched on your older brother's shoulder. You came with your family to see Julius Caesar."
Bill hovered in the air a foot in front of her. It was unappetizing, but the high collar around her neck actually seemed to hold its shape. She almost resembled the sumptuously dressed women in the higher boxes.
"And Daniel?" she asked.
"Daniel was a player-"
"Hey!"
"That's whay they called the actors." Bill rolled his eyes. "He was just starting out then. To everyone else in the audience, his debut was utterly forgettable. But to little three-year-old Lucinda"-Bill shrugged-"it put the fire in you. You've been quote-unquote dying to get onstage ever since.Tonight's your night."
"I'm an actor? ~ Lauren Kate

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

Maybe people have no idea how much work is behind a picture. It can seem very effortless, but there is a lot of work. It's exactly like doing ballet. It's hours and hours, but when you go onstage, it's just the pleasure of dancing. ~ Carine Roitfeld

Now what's important is that they have an attitude. Everybody has a look, but not everybody has cultivated what their stage persona is. And so when you're dealing with actors, it just makes it more difficult, because you have to help them come up with one. You know, Johnny Depp has no Johnny Depp character when he's onstage. You haven't seen An Evening With Johnny Depp at Carnegie Hall. ~ Bruce Vilanch

It probably does make it more difficult to enjoy a good laugh at someone who's onstage, seemingly yelling at you. But I'm not yelling at the audience, I'm yelling at the world. It genuinely sucks if people are taking it that way. But I'm not talking to individuals. ~ David Cross

My thing is you just have to try to feel young and stay young. Obviously you get a little older, but I still want my music to be young. I don't want to sound like an old dad onstage, so you just have to write music that sounds young. ~ Luke Bryan

I'll never die. I'll just explode, right there before your eyes, onstage. ~ Dick Dale

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

Tunstell, this is your Alpha speaking. Do as I tell you. You must regurgitate now.
Regurgitation is an involuntary action. You cannot simply order me to do it," replied Tunstell in a small voice.
"I most certainly can. Besides which, you are an actor."
Tunstell grimaced. "I've never had cause to vomit onstage. ~ Gail Carriger

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

In the beginning, the media was calling me a bad boy all the time because of the way I act and feel onstage. None of them have ever taken the time to get to know me when I climb offstage. ~ Bobby Brown

When I get onstage, I automatically feel beautiful. ~ Jill Scott

Every three or four shows, we have somebody that will come up onstage and propose marriage. ~ John Tesh

The youth choir is up onstage now, in flowing white gowns, and they're singing something in the key of goose-bumps. ~ A.S. King

I want to feel lucky every night when I go onstage, and not feel like, 'Oh, great, here we go again. ~ Joel Madden

I'm really clumsy, so I trip and fall a lot. And every time I perform in New York my pants split onstage. That's happened four or five times. Every time, I pull on my mom's jeans as fast as I can, so there we are, standing backstage without our pants on. It's like a curse. ~ Jessica Simpson

When Rin Tin Tin first became famous, most dogs in the world would not sit down when asked. Dogs performed duties: they herded sheep, they barked at strangers, they did what dogs do naturally, and people learned to interpret and make use of how they behaved. The idea of a dog's being obedient for the sake of good manners was unheard of. When dogs lived outside, as they usually did on farms and ranches, the etiquette required of them was minimal. But by the 1930s, Americans were leaving farms and moving into urban and suburban areas, bringing dogs along as pets and sharing living quarters with them. At the time, the principles of behavior were still mostly a mystery -- Ivan Pavlov's explication of conditional reflexes, on which much training is based, wasn't even published in an English translation until 1927. If dogs needed to be taught how to behave, people had to be trained to train their dogs. The idea that an ordinary person -- not a dog professional -- could train his own pet was a new idea, which is partly why Rin Tin Tin's performances in movies and onstage were looked upon as extraordinary. ~ Susan Orlean

The most important thing you can do as a performer is to be yourself, or be an onstage version of yourself. If you're not being true to yourself, and somebody likes that other version of you, you're kind of stuck. ~ Lyle Lovett

I keep saying I am an auto-didact, but I have a lot of outside influences. One I could cite is juggler Francis Brunn, who was the first man to throw ten rings in the air; he was really an amazing juggler who showed onstage the quest for perfection. ~ Philippe Petit

I would get ill before going onstage - something about getting in front of people, and if they don't laugh, I'm a bomb. I got over it when somebody laughed. ~ Tim Conway

I've gotten to where my hair is like my onstage prop; I need to hide behind it and throw it around - it's my slo-mo effect. ~ Amy Lee

I know now that everybody in the arts is forever a beginner. Experience counts for a great deal and very little. Every night onstage I feel I am starting from scratch, still not quite sure what I am doing and where I am going, thrown by the simplest thing that goes wrong. ~ Joan Rivers

Onstage it was always comfortable for me because that's where I felt at home. Offstage it was a different situation. I was still shy offstage and unfortunately, my shyness and my inability to communicate and really have great conversations or be part of the gang - in inverted commas - led me to the drug addiction, which, you know, blighted my life for 16 years because I thought by doing that it would make me join in. ~ Elton John

The first time I got onstage was when I was about 5 years old. It was at a church social, and I had a poem to recite. ~ Willie Nelson

My problem with the traditional acting method was that I never understood what you were supposed to be thinking about when you're onstage. ~ Tina Fey

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

I never studied anything, really. I didn't study the drums. I joined bands and made all the mistakes onstage. ~ Ringo Starr

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 consider myself something of a self-taught anthropologist. I try not to talk about something unless it's something I love. But if it's something that really annoys me, I fixate on it, learn something about it and then, when I'm onstage, it comes out. ~ Reggie Watts

I always say, when you're onstage you can't please everybody. I'm sure there are people who may not take to what I do, but that's okay. Thank God the majority are in my corner. ~ Don Rickles

Blake Lively is my style icon, and she always has rocking clothes and shoes. She keeps it really simple with hair and makeup, and I try to do the same thing. Onstage, I do a little smokier, a little more contouring, but I still always want to be an approachable and real artist, so I never try to go overboard. ~ Kelsea Ballerini

I love being onstage. I love the relationship with the audience. I love the letting go, the sense of discovery, the improvising. ~ Stephen Colbert

Being onstage and communicating with an audience was part of my life since I was very little, but I was never pushed into singing. My parents were so uninterested in me making music. ~ Robyn

I missed New York. Every break I had from the series, I'd fly back to the East Coast just to get back onstage. ~ Bebe Neuwirth

When I go out there onstage, I want to be more than just a blocky guy who waddles onto the posing platform. I want the girls to feel something. ~ Tom Platz

We're blessed to be at a level in my career where I can afford to take out a bus of my own and bring my whole family with me, so that's great, too. The boys are out with us all the time, and it's just great to be able to turn around onstage and see my wife back there behind me. ~ Josh Turner

There is a bit of acting involved when you get in front of a camera for a video. Even when you perform onstage, you're putting on a show. ~ Aaliyah

You want to have butterflies in your stomach, because if you don't, if you walk out onstage complacent, that's not a good thing. ~ Joan Jett

It's a surreal experience. During the first show, I was like, "Wow, I'm onstage with Ms. Tyson!" Everybody has been amazing, and the energy is really beautiful. I'm replacing my friend Condola, so everyone making sure that I'm OK has turned what could've been a very scary, nerve-racking and lonely experience into a supportive environment. ~ Adepero Oduye

I'll give you my worst nightmare. I'm dreaming that I'm onstage, the curtain goes up, and I have no idea what my lines are or what's going on. I think I should know, I kind of know, I remember rehearsing ... and the audience is there waiting. ~ Jackie Earle Haley