Performing Quotes

I started performing opera when I was 10 years old. I didn't perform as Zola Jesus until I was probably 18. ~ Zola Jesus

I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders. ~ Chinua Achebe

My first professional job was actually at a place called Opryland U.S.A., which no longer exists, but I've been performing since I was a kid. ~ John Barrowman

God discovers the martyr and confessor without the trial of flames and tortures, and will hereafter entitle many to the reward of actions which they had never the opportunity of performing. ~ Joseph Addison

True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I love acting. I love performing. ~ Isaiah Mustafa

Anything that loosens you up and makes you freer is good, because that's what acting and performing is all about - being free. It gives you a better connection to the audience. ~ Brett Somers

Most of us remember Nat King Cole as a vocalist. His warm, grainy baritone is still so closely identified with such familiar ballads as 'Stardust' and 'The Christmas Song' that it's hard to imagine anyone else performing them. ~ Terry Teachout

I lowered my hands to try to save from disorder the arrangement of the tleaves and flowers; meanwhile, she was also dealing with the branches, leaning forward; and so it happened that at the very moment when one of my hands slipped in confusion between Madame Miyagi's kimono and her bare skin and found itself clasping a soft and warm breast, elongated in form, one of the lady's hands, from among the branches keiyaki [translator's note: in Europe called Caucasian elm], had reached my member and was holding it in a firm, frank grasp, drawing it from my garments as if she were performing the operation of stripping away leaves. ~ Italo Calvino

I did go to a performing arts school, so that facilitated my creativity, though I ended up going in a more musical direction. ~ Alycia Debnam Carey

You get into this situation, performing for T.V., where you have to speak with utter sincerity. It's just like the radio. You have to say it like you mean it, even though the thing you're saying is actually planned out. ~ Ira Glass

Whatever is going on inside your head has everything to do with how well you end up performing. ~ D.C. Gonzalez

It's not brave to do something that doesn't scare you. ~ Lena Dunham

Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy on life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he's taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment–just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!–an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. ~ Ayn Rand

If we make one criterion for defining the artist the impulse to make something new, or to do something in a new way - a kind of divine discontent with all that has gone before, however good - then we can find such artists at every level of human culture, even when performing acts of great simplicity. ~ Margaret Mead

Performing comedy, you develop a rhythm of ideas and laughs. I live for it. ~ Louis C.K.

Mentally there's no question about whether I still like the sport and love doing it. I think it's pretty clear to everyone here that I love the sport. I love doing gymnastics and I love performing. So that's not really a question. ~ Samantha Peszek

He used to make me feel that nothing I said was witty enough or sarcastic enough or smart enough. He was always struggling to be different, even when it didn't matter. It was as if he was performing his life instead of living his life. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I listen to Prince on my iPad. And I use a Chords & Scales app to warm up before performing. ~ Janelle Monae

No one, especially not Birkhoff himself, would claim that the intricacies of aesthetic pleasure could be reduced entirely to a mere formula. However, in Birkhoff's words, "In the inevitable analytic accompaniment of the creative process, the theory of aesthetic measure is capable of performing a double service: it gives a simple, unified account of the aesthetic experience, and it provides means for the systematic analysis of typical aesthetic fields. ~ Mario Livio

I remember performing in Russia when I was twenty, and I stayed at this hotel with 3000 rooms. There were sailors knocking on my room door, wanting to barter stuffed animals with Marlboros that I had been instructed to bring! ~ Anne Akiko Meyers

As a 29-year-old, the only thing that I can possibly think is that if I'm still performing at 50, it's because I'll have had disastrous marriages and I have to pay for them. ~ Robbie Williams

There hasn't been one highlight that stands out ... but touring and performing has been great. ~ Christina Milian

I don't agree with superstitious routines, but there are a couple of things I'll always do before performing. I'll get together with the band and chill out, and then, just before I go on stage, I'll always check my flies. ~ James Blunt

I make make music in my own time, messing around with beats and riffs I write. Always practicing performing in my room most times I probably look like an idiot dancing around haha. ~ Christina Grimmie

Something must be going on deep in his subconscious, he thought, some kind of redecoration, refurbishment, reupholstering that required a lot of downtime - some shadowy application running in the background, performing unknown operations, consuming huge chunks of psychic ram. ~ Lev Grossman

My experiences taught me firsthand that when a person is not performing well, there are many possible reasons, some not of his own choosing. ~ Dallin H. Oaks

From a very young age, I was singing and acting and performing for my family. ~ Heather Dubrow

Jonny has a theory that South Africa are doomed to choke in every major tournament for the next fifty years as payment for apartheid. He also believes that England will spend centuries working off their colonial sins by performing miserably at sport. I then ask him why Australia, who wiped out generations of Aborigines, win everything in every sport, and he shuts up. ~ Shehan Karunatilaka

Western liberals who rightly condemn imperialism [are] yet are blind to the cultural imperialism they are performing when they silence my critiques of misogyny. They behave as if they want to save my culture and faith from me, and forget that they are immune to the violations about which I speak. ~ Mona Eltahawy

I'm terrified of performing live. ~ Rashida Jones

Most stand-up comics relish performing 'in one' - solo. They like the autonomy. ~ Jason Alexander

I like performing, but I usually get really sick when I'm on tour, and it's just hard. ~ Grimes

I like it when I'm on the stage, but honestly, I would be very happy if I could cut it off, just enjoy my life when I wasn't performing. ~ Beyonce Knowles

Performing has always been something I wanted to do. My dad had a video camera and I loved being in front of it. ~ Julia Voth

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it
namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign. ~ Mark Twain

We sometimes fail to realise that when we pray to Allah we are in fact performing a great act of ibadah (worship). On the surface it might seem as if we are asking out of self-interest, but we are really proving the sincerity of our belief in the tauhid (Oneness) of Allah and our submission to the True God. Thus the Prophet pbuh said: "Supplication is itself the worship." (Reported by Abu Daud and al-Tirmizi, sahih.) If a servant prays the whole night to Allah, he therefore performs a great ibadah all night long. ~ Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin

Earl "The Goat" Manigault was probably the greatest basketball player of all time, but Michael Jordan is universally regarded as the best ever. This is because The Goat only did it at Rucker Park, while Michael did it where it mattered: in front of the world. ~ Tucker Max

For there are three ways of performing an act of mercy: the merciful word, by forgiving and by comforting; secondly, if you can offer no word, then pray - that too is mercy; and thirdly, deeds of mercy. And when the Last Day comes, we shall be judged from this, and on this basis we shall receive the eternal verdict. ~ Mary Faustina Kowalska

Music is my passion, singing, performing. I play piano and musical theater is my background. ~ Janel Parrish

When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is. ~ Anton Chekhov

And I try to give the best bang for the buck. I love performing more than anything else. ~ Jimmy Buffett

I am so much of a mind now to be in the audience, to watch and to experience, and to feel, rather than having to get up and perform, I want my life to be less about performing. ~ Alec Baldwin

Stunt performing is a highly structured career path - you have to gain qualifications in six different sports to a high standard. It takes four or five years and costs at least £20,000; a black belt in a martial art from scratch costs a fortune. ~ Steve Truglia

I am not doing any favour, only performing a duty; this victory is a result of struggle of five generations. ~ Narendra Modi

I was painfully shy, so my aunt suggested to my mum that me and my brother go to Stage 84, a performing arts school in Yorkshire. I've probably romanticised it in my head, but I seem to remember that in the space of an hour's drama workshop, I was transformed. I went in really shy, and I came out full of confidence. ~ Christian Cooke

I love singing and I love performing and just making things perfect. ~ Keke Palmer

I would really, really, really like to be a legend like Madonna. Madonna knows what to do next, and when she's performing, the audience is just in awe of her. ~ Britney Spears

In public at least, Roberts himself purports to have a different view of the Court than his conservative sponsors. "Judges are like umpires," he said at his confirmation hearing. "Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them." Elsewhere, Roberts has often said, "Judges are not politicians." None of this is true. Supreme Court justices are nothing at all like baseball umpires. It is folly to pretend that the awesome work of interpreting the Constitution, and thus defining the rights and obligations of American citizenship, is akin to performing the rote […] task of calling balls and strikes. When it comes to the core of the Court's work, determining the contemporary meaning of the Constitution, it is ideology, not craft or skill, that controls the outcome of cases. ~ Jeffrey Toobin

I love amazing people. I love dazzling them. That's why I think performing magic is one of the greatest things a person can do. ~ Ricky Jay

In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the boats, in the shade of the Sal-wood forest, in the shade of the fig tree is where Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahman, the young falcon, together with his friend Govinda, son of a Brahman. The sun tanned his light shoulders by the banks of the river when bathing, performing the sacred ablutions, the sacred offerings. In the mango grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father, the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked. For a long time, Siddhartha had been partaking in the discussions of the wise men, practising debate with Govinda, practising with Govinda the art of reflection, the service of meditation. He already knew how to speak the Om silently, the word of words, to speak it silently into himself while inhaling, to speak it silently out of himself while exhaling, with all the concentration of his soul, the forehead surrounded by the glow of the clear-thinking spirit. He already knew to feel Atman in the depths of his being, indestructible, one with the universe. ~ Hermann Hesse

I really wanted to approach performing live differently than most people who just play guitar and sing. ~ James Vincent McMorrow

So the researcher's central dilemma exists in an especially acute form in psychology: either the animal is not like us, in which case there is no reason for performing the experiment; or else the animal is like us, in which case we ought not to perform on the animal an experiment that would be considered outrageous if performed on one of us. Another ~ Peter Singer

Acting and performing music is exactly the same. Therefore, an actor, for instance, who is very impressive, he's not simply imitating or trying to imitate, but he must dominate this kind of feeling, and then he transmits it in a much stronger way. ~ Pierre Boulez

If life gives you lemons, drink the juice in order to mask the presence of performing-enhancing drugs. ~ Lance Armstrong

On what high-performing companies should be striving to create: A great place for great people to do great work. ~ Marilyn C. Nelson

When you see young players coming into the squad and pushing you, no matter what age you are, you have to react. You have to worry about yourself and perform as well as you can. If you end up looking around at others, wondering who's performing better, you take your eye off the ball. ~ Frank Lampard

I shall develop the thesis that anyone acting communicatively must, in performing any speech act, raise universal validity claims and suppose that they can be vindicated. ~ Jurgen Habermas

I was performing from the age of three. ~ Jennifer Ellison

A majority of women seem to consider themselves sent into the world for the sole purpose of displaying dry goods, and it is only when acting the part of an animated milliner's block that they feel they are performing their appropriate mission. ~ Abba Louisa Goold Woolson

I had enormous self-image problems and very low self-esteem, which I hid behind obsessive writing and performing. It's exactly what I do now, except I enjoy it now. I'm not driven like I was in my twenties. I was driven to get through life very quickly. ~ David Bowie

My mom and my dad never pushed me into performing. They never prohibited me from trying anything, or being anything. They never restricted me in any way. For which I'll be forever grateful. ~ Heath Ledger

People often overlook the profound intimacy which can be felt by performing the smallest acts for someone they love. Never underestimate the energy that can be felt by simply sharing the same space with your soulmate. It is that electricity between two people that causes time to cease to exist. ~ Leanne R. Clute

Powerpoint presentations are a kind of theater, a kind of augmented stand-up. Too often it's a boring and tedious genre, and audiences are subjected to the bad as well as the good. ~ David Byrne

Each action we take is an act of self-expression. We often think of large-scale or important deeds as being indications of our real selves, but even how we sharpen a pencil can reveal something about our feelings at that moment. Do we sharpen the pencil carefully or nervously so that it doesn't break? Do we bother to pay attention to what we're doing? How do we sharpen the same pencil when we're angry or in a hurry? Is it the same as when we're calm or unhurried?
Even the smallest movement discloses something about the person executing the action because it is the person who's actually performing the deed. In other words, action doesn't happen by itself, we make it happen, and in doing so we leave traces of ourselves on the activity. The mind and body are interrelated. ~ H.E. Davey

Miss Goodblatt would call on me to read. She said I had a talent. So on a whim, I auditioned for the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. ~ Ving Rhames

Of course I love when people are quiet, but I also love when people are comfortable. I love when people emote. The flip side of having a totally silent audience is that they're less likely to react to you in the space, and I think that's one of the great things about performing live: you get energy from the audience, and you give energy back to them. There's interaction. ~ Missy Mazzoli

Yes " Morrison said dryly. "I'm sure it would have helped with flying the car, if any of us had been calm and rational enough to think of taking a drum out and performing some theme music for your Jame's Bond meets Harry Potter special effects. But since we weren't, now I'm going to drum till you stop looking like something the cat dragged in. Don't argue with me. ~ C.E. Murphy

If players are performing for you, their age shouldn't really matter, especially because the older players can bring their experience to the table. ~ Frank Lampard

For me, performing is the biggest part of being a rapper. There's nothing like the feeling of screaming your story to people. ~ Chance The Rapper

I have a children's theater background, so I grew up performing for child audiences; it's sort of my specialty. I know the child audience pretty well - or felt like I did because I performed for them so much. I studied a lot about the child audience, about theater. So it was naturally a place that I gravitated to. ~ Linda Woolverton

I didn't know I wanted to act until it was around 21. I had just come back to Los Angeles after two and half years of traveling and working as a dancer and singer and was looking for a new performing art to study. I started taking acting classes and fell in love. ~ Caity Lotz

On either side of them the essence of honky tonk beach resort had now enclosed them: gas stations, fried clam stands, Dairy Treets, motels painted in feverish pastel colors, mini golf.

Larry was drawn two painful ways by these things. Part of him clamored at their sad and blatant ugliness and at the ugliness of the minds that had turned this section of a magnificent, savage coastline into one long highway amusement park for families in station wagons. But there was a more subtle, deeper part of him that whispered of the people who had filled these places and this road during other summers. Ladies in sunhats and shorts too tight for their large behinds. College boys in red and black striped rugby shirts. Girls in beach shifts and thong sandals. Small screaming children with ice cream spread over their faces. They were American people, and there was a kind of dirty, compelling romance about them whenever they were in groups never mind if the group was in an Aspen ski lodge or performing their prosaic/ arcane rites of summer along Route 1 in Maine. And now all these Americans were gone. ~ Stephen King

Companies leverage two basic pulleys of human behavior to increase the likelihood of an action occuring: the ease of performing an action and the psychological motivation to do it. ~ Nir Eyal

For me I have learned to enjoy everything, especially performing live, so much more. I used to get horrible stage fright when I was younger and today and just love to sing for anyone who still turns up at my shows! ~ Olivia Newton-John

The nice thing about live performance is that I've never, ever been let down. Partly I'm lucky that my audience self-selects itself. Generally they know what they're in for, and generally we all just like each other and get along. But I always find one or two or a dozen really interesting people in the audience who make the show different. And that's one of the things I really like about performing. ~ John Hodgman

Outside of performing, (a comedian) is someone who is analyzing life, thinking about it and trying to be observing so much. In my opinion, it can make you feel on the outside looking in. ~ Chris Gethard

I really like performing for people. ~ Dan Harmon

It's all performing; that's what we do in life. We talk, we look, and we hear, and we listen. Your life is a performance. ~ Seymour Cassel

There's real drama in performing live. You never know how it's going to be. ~ Kevin Costner

To write poetry, like sincere poetry, it is like performing heart surgery on yourself without anesthesia ... in public ... You are peeling back layers. You are dissecting yourself ... You do not know what they [the audience] is going to do when you reach into yourself and rip out your organs to be displayed ~ Amir Sulaiman

I created this picture of this character who would play the guitar effortlessly, who had no limitations, performing beautiful music, and he moved around with great acrobatic skills, just capturing the audience and being a great entertainer. ~ Steve Vai

Performing, not rehearsing, is a dancer's raison d'etre, and I've been lucky to 'etre' in some extraordinary places - Cuba, Paris, Mongolia. In particular, a two-week stint in Greece leaps to mind. We danced in the Acropolis's Herodes Atticus amphitheater, once a venue for gladiator spectacles. ~ Sascha Radetsky

You've got to have fun playing. It bothers me when players don't seem to be enjoying themselves, even when they play an incredible improvisation. ~ Rufus Reid

In truth I never really liked any of the heavy drugs, because normally my energy is up when I'm performing, and that's about it. Cocaine is nothing new. It's the pressure, I think. People use it to relieve that, and for me it is about getting numb and forgetting. I have a reverse metabolic reaction to the stuff. ~ Robin Williams

The bizarre quality of the moment was not lost on Marcus. Here he stood, clothing torn and mauled by what was clearly the result of a misguided romantic encounter between a canine and large bear. The female standing in front of him was in absolute and, not to put too fine a point on it, scandalous disarray. And a devilish sprite was performing polite introductions in the middle of the wood.

It was of Shakespearean proportions. A farce, to be sure.

He should be appalled. Any man of his standing would be.

But he was delighted. ~ Stefanie Sloane

I'm a reactor. I can react to crowds, performing situations. ~ Rick Nielsen

Saving a life wasn't always about performing complicated medical procedures. It was something more. It was about putting a smile on someone's face and hearing them sincerely thank me. ~ Daniel Sink

It wasn't right. A rescuer shouldn't have a hard-on while performing a heroic act. Charles was pretty sure there was a rule about that somewhere, but he'd be damned if it was one he could follow right now. ~ Tiffany Allee

I like being on camera, performing, seeing what people have in common. ~ Eddie Huang

You create opportunities by performing, not complaining ~ Muriel Siebert

Emotion is more than just anger. When I am performing, I need emotion, but I need control, too. Emotion drives the best performance and is necessary, but it must be controlled. I believe Fedor [Emelianenko] does that. I do too. We may look different in how we do it, but we both do it. ~ Mike Tyson

I pray that in the heat of planning, of running, of achieving and performing, that you would pause. Hear the Lord calling you to draw close to him. God loves you, and as unbelievable as it is, he wants to be with you. Find some time today to climb up in your Father's arms, let him drive the universe, and just rest. He's a strong dad. And you never get too big for his lap. ~ Mike Howerton

I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking. ~ Paul Newman

But Jesus wanted the crowd to know, look, 'John's (the baptist) the one who got this whole thing started.' In verse ten He says, 'This is the one about whom it is written, 'I'll send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare Your way before You.' Jesus says, 'If it wasn't for John, I wouldn't even be here performing these miracles.' ~ Steven Furtick

Nothing is like being out there and playing and performing and winning - nothing. But to have an interest in the player? The nerves and everything that goes with it? Seeing what he's learned and how he's done it? That's the second best thing to playing. I think. ~ Jimmy Connors

I've always loved music, but I never really played anything. After 'Walk the Line' and learning to play guitar, and having that sense of performing, I think that certainly opened the door for me, for music. ~ Joaquin Phoenix

Jase and I asked Mia what she wanted to do before her surgery. "How about a family party?" she suggested. So the invitation went out. It's interesting when you mention to family members that they are going to be on TV--schwoom, they are there. As Willie said, "I didn't know we had this much family."
Mia had always heard the funny stories about Jase wrestling with his brothers and cousins growing up, particularly how cousin Amy beat up Willie, so that's what she requested for the special entertainment. As Jase said, "It's the ultimate redneck dinner theater." A wrestling ring was delivered, and the warmup act was the Robertson boys clowning around, performing their best wrestling moves. Willie surprised everyone with guest professional wrestlers, including Jase's favorite, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan.
I felt kind of bad for them, wearing only their little wrestling pants, while the rest of us were bundled up in winter coats. Yes, it was January, but it was unusually cold in Louisiana--about twenty degrees. The wrestlers had to keep moving fast; otherwise, they would have frozen to death!
At the end of the party, Mia took the stage between Jase and Willie, thanking everyone for coming and then sharing from her heart: "My favorite verse is Psalm 46:10: 'Be still, and know that I am God!' God is bigger than all of us, and He is bigger than any of your struggles, too." I think I can say that there was hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Going into her surgery, Mia was being bra ~ Missy Robertson

In high performing countries, principals are working with highly qualified teachers who come from the top tiers of the graduation range, who have been rigorously prepared in universities and through supervised practice in schools, and who remain in education for all of their careers. ~ Andy Hargreaves

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted. ~ Ving Rhames