Real Talent Quotes

THE NAME OF THE WIND marks the debut of a writer we would all do well to watch. Patrick Rothfuss has real talent, and his tale of Kvothe is deep and intricate and wondrous. ~ Terry Brooks

While I enjoy teaching people on the basic and intermediate levels to work them up to advanced levels, my real talent is for the advanced students. You could say that I'm like a ninth-degree black belt in martial arts. ~ Frederick Lenz

He was a noisy robust little man with a gleam of real talent concealed in the messy obscurity of his verse. But because he did his best to shock people with his monstrous mass of otiose words (he was the inventor of the "submental grunt" as he called it), his main output seems now so nugatory, so false, so old-fashioned (super-modern things have a queer knack of dating much faster than others) that his true value is only remembered by a few scholars who admire the magnificent translations of English poems made by him at the very outset of his literary career, - ~ Vladimir Nabokov

In a house, as in a garden, there is a point when over-mingling can occur. At first, when the new plants are dug in, there is too much space between them. They seem artificial, temporary. Then, as they grow, the bed finds a point of balance, the taller trees occupying the upper layers, the sprawling shrubs - the hydrangeas, buddleia, pittosporum - filling out the middle, and the smaller bulbs and ground covers punctuating the under-spaces. Then, without warning, equilibrium is lost. A rampant jasmine covers an adolescent tree; a hydrangea thrives, forcing out a lilly pilly that struggles for light beneath a spreading magnolia. The spaces are subsumed. In the house, there was a period when everyone thrived. Even Heloise had been noticed by Jerome, who was sitting down with her on most days and doing sums and geography, and reading poetry. 'She has real talent,' he said to Helena, over the kitchen bench. She raised an eyebrow ambiguously but didn't comment. Then, slowly, the balance began to slip. ~ Emily Bitto

The regular guy still relates to him and Howard is a $500 million guy now who dates a model and drives about in a limo all day. But Howard still knows how to make a plumber laugh and those guys still have him on in the morning, because he is a real talent. ~ Artie Lange

If you ever try to do anything to restrict my movements again, you'll find out I know how to hold a grudge too," she said between her teeth. "In fact, I have a real talent for it. ~ Thea Harrison

You are getting to be rather conceited my dear, and it is quite time you set about correcting it. You have good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty. -Mrs. March ~ Louisa May Alcott

Real talent harnesses what it has and unlocks what it doesn't. There is natural ability, there is the discipline that develops natural ability, there is the unending study of one's craft, and there is the exponential lifting of performance by the selfless combination of efforts. ~ Ken Goldstein

Artists are very sensitive and heart-driven, and are usually prone to speaking freely about anything that touches them. The first way to identify a corrupt society is to study public figures in the entertainment sector. If many lack real talent, or have talent but rarely speak out openly about policies that affect them besides the environment, then that country has rigid gatekeepers. ~ Suzy Kassem

He'd had a real talent, but what was talent without confidence, self-possession, "ownership," as people said, pompously but maybe accurately. ~ Meg Wolitzer

I get really frustrated with people who turn their noses up at talent shows like 'The Voice' and 'X-Factor.' ~ Ricki-Lee Coulter

The world will always punish the few people with special talents the rest of us don't recognize as real. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

One more tip, kids. If you had any real talent, the air would practically have been on fire when you got ready to throw down. But you losers don't have enough magic between you to turn cereal into breakfast. ~ Jim Butcher

I like to work with really good professional people - anyone with real talent. ~ Lauren Bacall

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar. ~ Stephen King

What I've learned over the years is it's so much better to surround yourself with real talent and hire real chefs. I learned more from the chefs I have working for me than you could ever imagine. There's nothing wrong with being able to create opportunities for people, and you don't have to do everything, take credit for everything, and have all the weight be on your shoulders. ~ Michael Mina

Real talent shines through regardless of how many others there are around you. ~ Paloma Faith

Real talent is a mystery, and people who've got it, know it. ~ George Cukor

Lee Strasberg told me I had talent. Real talent. It was the first time that anyone, except my father
who had to say so
told me I was good. At anything. It was a turning point in my life. I went to bed thinking about acting. I woke up thinking about acting. It was like the roof had come off my life! ~ Jane Fonda

Acting is a very artistic profession and there are thousands of people out there who think they are actors but there are very few who have real talent. ~ Wolfgang Puck

Mother loathed the all-black B movies Hollywood made for the "colored" audience, where the stereotypes were broader and more offensive to her, and where the musical interludes did no justice to real talent, she said, but trivialized it. ~ Gayle Pemberton

In effect, I feel like a blind, deaf, and illiterate person working through the sensibilities and multiple, real talents of other people. Everything I do is collaborative. ~ Godfrey Reggio

Mindi Scott has a real talent for getting inside her protagonist's head. She sketches out Coley's story in grand swathes, and then paints in all the little details, so that you feel as though you are enmeshed in Coley's brain: thinking her thoughts, feeling her confusion, anger, and, in the end, pain. I just don't think it's possible to read this book and not identify with Coley in some way. ~ Amber Benson

I think that that's always been a real talent of mine is to be able to spot somebody who has that thing that is so non-definable, that thing that I wish I possessed. ~ Rosie O'Donnell

I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies. The world needs such men more than Heaven does. ~ Georg C. Lichtenberg

It took real talent to be that inept. ~ Shanna Swendson

It's one thing if your hobby is to put ships inside a bottle, but a deer in the headlights! ... That's a real talent ~ Josh Stern

Ignore how it feels when the only real talent you have is for hidding the truth. You have a God-given knack for commiting a terrible sin. It's your calling. You have a natural gift for denial. A blessing. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

I like playing a character that admires real musicianship, and real talent and hard work. I think that's a good message for everyone. ~ Elizabeth Gillies

Grigoryevich...Not that he had any real talent himself - but what a lot of deaths of talented people he had witnessed. Young physicists and historians, specialists in ancient languages, philosophers, musicians, young Russian Swifts and Erasmuses - how many of them he had seen put on their "wooden jackets." Prerevolutionary literature had often lamented the fate of serf actors, musicians, and painters. But who was there today to write about the young men and women who had never had the chance to write their books and paint their paintings? The Russian earth is indeed fertile and generous. She gives birth to her own Platos, to her own quick-witted Newtons - but how casually and terribly she devours these children of hers. ~ Vasily Grossman

While you're alive it's shameful to worm your way into
the Calendar of Saints.
Disbelief in yourself is more saintly.
It takes real talent not to dread being terrified
by your own agonizing lack of talent.

Disbelief in yourself is indispensable.
Indispensable to us is the loneliness
of being gripped in the vise,
so that in the darkest night the sky will enter you
and skin your temples with the stars,
so that streetcars will crash into the room,
wheels cutting across your face,
so the dangling rope, terrible and alive,
will float into the room and dance invitingly in the air.

Indispensable is any mangy ghost
in tattered, overplayed stage rags,
and if even the ghosts are capricious,
I swear, they are no more capricious than those who are alive.

Indispensable amidst babbling boredom
are the deadly fear of uttering the right words
and the fear of shaving, because across your cheekbone
graveyard grass already grows.

It is indispensable to be sleeplessly delirious,
to fail, to leap into emptiness.
Probably, only in despair is it possible
to speak all the truth to this age.

It is indispensable, after throwing out dirty drafts,
to explode yourself and crawl before ridicule,
to reassemble your shattered hands
from fingers that rolled under the dresser.

Indispensable is the cowardice to be cruel
an ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Most of you will probably never really discover anything. You may not contribute anything to the great equations that describe the universe to the world. But you will have the good fortune of encountering people of exceptional intelligence. People who are much smarter than you. Never get in their way, never group together in disgruntled circles and play games. Respect talent, real talent. Worship it. Clever people will always be disliked. Don't exploit that to crawl your way to the top. By the laws of probability most of you are mediocre. Accept it. The tragedy of mediocrity is that even mediocre people shake their heads and mull over how "standards are falling". So don't mull. Just know when you've to get out of the way. Most of you will be sideshows, extras in the grand unfolding of truth. That's all right. Once you accept that and let the best brains do their jobs, you will have done your service to science and mankind. ~ Manu Joseph

No one can sing well, play well, or write well, without living through moments of the deepest pain and anguish. Every real talent has known times of torturing depression when the heart in its agony has cried out to God: "Why hast Thou forsaken me? What have I done that I should suffer so?" And then, at the very darkest moment, suddenly, the veil is torn from their eyes! Truth, with her flaming torch, stands before them, and they understand that God sends them suffering to strengthen and ennoble their talent, that it may touch men's hearts and show to tired wanderers on earth glimpses of heaven. ~ Aimee Dostoyevsky

You have a real talent for getting your ass kicked. ~ Holly Black

In a very real sense, there are only two roles in organisations: customers and suppliers. Everybody functions simultaneously in both roles, whether inside or outside the organisation the essence of good business, therefore, is the quality of the relationship between customer and supplier. ~ Stephen Covey

David Haye is too light. Simply too light. He's not a real heavyweight. ~ Vitali Klitschko

You know, real life doesn't just suddenly resolve itself. You have to keep working at it. Democracy, marriage, friendship. You can't just say, 'She's my best friend.' That's not a given, it's a process. ~ Viggo Mortensen

Because of movies, music and television shows, men have come to believe that they are supposed to wait on a woman hand and foot and act like a stalker to make women fall for them. They learn, basically, that if they become her do-boy, she will fall in love with them. That may look romantic in the movies, but when you try that in real life, that is not the way it happens. It actually turns them off. Approval seeking behavior is not masculine. It is creepy stalker-like behavior. ~ Corey Wayne

Playing the good guy is tough because you know as well as I do, in real life, you have to watch your P's and Q's and conduct yourself in a respectable manner if you expect to have friends. ~ R. Lee Ermey

The Herons! The Herons!
The mighty, fighting Herons!
No other Brotherband you'll see
Is even half as darin'

We sailed away from Hallasholm, we had to be real quick,
For Kloof had eaten Erak's ax and chewed his walking stick.

We sailed across the Stormwite and we struck a mighty storm.
We had to wear our woolly caps to keep us nice and warm.

We sailed around Cape Shelter and then south to Araluen.
We called upon the people there to find out what was doin'.

We chased an evil slaver to the market of Socorro.
"We can't rescue them tonight," said Hal. "We'll get them out tomorrow."
Lydia and the Ranger burned the market to the ground.
The rest of us, we freed the slaves then headed out of town.

The Herons! The Herons!
The mighty, fighting Herons!
No other Brotherband you'll see
Is even half as darin'

The slave master named Mahmel was a nasty kind of thug,
So Stiggy dropped a rock and crushed him like a bug.

We sailed back to Cresthaven and we set the captives free.
King Duncan said, "Well done, my lads, you're just the boys for me.
My Ranger Gilan has to go hunt down some assassins
So go along with him and give these wicked types a thrashin'."

A pirate galley barred our way. We quickly overtook 'em.
And Ingvar led the charge aboard to stab and chop and hook 'em.

We beat the Tualaghi and the Scorpions ~ John Flanagan

This had been real: real in its flaws and uncertainties, real in its small triumphs, real in its compromises and understanding. ~ Juliet Marillier

You must know that I am, of all men who were ever born, the most inclined to love persons. Whenever I behold someone who possesses any talent or displays any dexterity of mind, who can do or say something more appropriately than the rest of the world, I am compelled to fall in love with him; and then I give myself up to him so entirely that I am no longer my own property, but wholly his. ~ Michelangelo

We're not resuscitating a snowman, are we?"
"Real funny, Doc." She gave him a playful sideways glance.
"Good, because I'm pretty sure defibrillators and melted snow are not a good mix. ~ Nancy Naigle

If another girl ever steals your man, there's no better revenge than letting her keep him. REAL MEN CAN'T BE STOLEN. ~ Wiz Khalifa

Here and there among men, there are those who pause in the hurried rush to listen to the call of a life that is more real ... He who sees and hears too much is cursed for a dreamer, a fanatic, or a fool, by the mad mob who, having eyes, see not, ears and hear not, and refuse to understand ... ~ Harold Bell Wright

Love is undying,of that I feel certain.I mean deep,abiding,cherishing love.The love that gives protection even as you,my guardian angel,gave me protection long after you had gone-and continue to give this very day ...
A love beyond Death-a love that makes Life alive! ~ Ruskin Bond

Real science can be far stranger than science fiction and much more satisfying. ~ Stephen Hawking

During the 1970s (and particularly because of Vietnam), it slowly became standard for absolutely everyone to go to college, particularly if they had no desire to get a real job. One of the results was a massive population of film school students, most of whom became waiters and valets in the 1980s. Since the vast majority of these Kubrick wannabes couldn't crack the motion picture industry, they saw opportunities to make minimovies in the world of rock 'n' roll. ~ Chuck Klosterman

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking. ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

My talent is definitely a gift. I don't understand where it comes from. I don't play an instrument, and I never went to school for music production, but I know exactly how a song should sound and how to give an artist direction. ~ Sean Combs

I will never use a substitute for butter. Margarine is one molecule away from eating plastic. If I'm going to eat that type of food, it's going to be the real deal. ~ Paula Deen

The calamities that are constantly being reported - battles, massacres, famines, revolutions - tend to inspire in the average person a feeling of unreality. One has no way of verifying the facts, one is not even fully certain that they have happened, and one is always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. Probably the truth is discoverable, but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in almost any newspaper that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or for failing to form an opinion. The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs. Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakable fact can be impudently denied. Moreover, although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do this by scoring off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether they support him. ~ George Orwell

Children are born with varying levels of talent and intelligence, but possessing natural smarts and skills is no guarantee of success. It takes more than that: it takes work on the part of parents and teachers to cultivate these qualities, to instill in children the drive and character necessary to translate their natural gifts into extraordinary results. ~ Rafe Esquith

Oh, you mean like Orpheo rescuing Euniphon from the Underworld?" said Roland.
Rob Anybody just stared.
"It's a myth from Ephebe," Roland went on. "It's supposed to be a love story, but it's really a metaphor for the annual return of summer. There's a lot of versions of that story."
( ... )
"A metaphor is a kind o' lie to help people understand what's true," said Billy Bigchin, but this didn't help much. ~ Terry Pratchett

This was an outstanding family subject in our real life. ~ Rohinton Mistry

Nobody can know ... just how heavy a burden trying to protect another human being can be. I was still a child. I couldn't have understood the real meaning of my promise. ~ CLAMP

I just feel in a lot of ways black people are so much looser and cooler. Just as a culture, it's so much more real. ~ Paul Reubens

My first life, for all it lacked any real direction, had about it a kind of happiness, if ignorance is innocence, and loneliness is a separation of care. ~ Claire North

We always know when we are awake that we cannot be dreaming even though when actually dreaming we feel all this may be real. ~ Ruth Rendell

We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise. ~ Simone Weil

Because maybe Watonka was only ever supposed to be a temporary stopover, and maybe I will chase that train over the hill, and maybe we're all destined to leave this place, for sure, for real, together or alone. But for right now, we're here. ~ Sarah Ockler

One of the differences between real documentaries and reality television, besides the artificial construct of reality television, is that the people who are recruited to be on those shows, and the people who are interested in going on those shows, basically want to be famous. Or maybe they can win a million dollars or something. ~ Steve James

The only people in the world allowed to keep real secrets are the security organisations owned by governments. ~ D.C. Stansfield

To visualize is to see what is not there, what is not real - a dream. To visualize is, in fact, to make visual lies. Visual lies, however, have a way of coming true. ~ Peter McWilliams

What I have yet to see is a real woman choose a younger man because he spent six hours a day at the gym trying to sculpt his abs. ~ Candace Bushnell

The idea that maybe you don't have to own a car if you only need one occasionally may catch on, just like time-sharing caught on in real estate. ~ Steve Case

If your religion is better than mine and your opinion, you have a real problem. ~ Michael Berryman

I knew that the real was yonder and that the darkened dream of it was here. ~ Black Elk

....faking his real life so he can live his fake one. ~ Hugh Howey

The male staff all wore gorgeous colored loin cloths that always seem to be about to fall off they're wonderful hips. Their upper bodies were tanned sculpted and naked.
The female staff wore short shorts and silky flowing tops that almost but didn't expose their young easy breasts.
I noticed we only ever encountered male staff, and the men walking through the lobby were always greeted by the female staff.
Very ingenious, as Rebecca said later - if we had ticked Lesbians on the form I wonder what would have happened?
-There was a place to tick for Lesbians, I said ?
-Sexual Persuasion- it was on all the forms
-Really. And, how many options were there?
-You're getting the picture, said Jillian.
This was not your basic check in procedure as at say a Best Western. Our Doormen/Security Guards , held out our chairs for us to let us sit at the elegant ornate table. Then they poured us tea, and placed before each of us a small bowl of tropical fruit, cut into bite size pieces. Wonderful!
Almost immediately a check in person came and sat opposite us at the desk. Again a wonderful example of Island Male talent. (in my mind anyway)
We signed some papers, and were each handed an immense wallet of information passes, electronic keys, electronic ID's we would wear to allow us to move through the park and its 'worlds' and a small flash drive
I looked at it as he handed it to me, and given the mindset of the Hotel and the murals and th ~ Germaine Gibson

On sheer ability, Mario is good enough to win scoring titles with a broken stick. On pure talent, he's the best there is. But Wayne almost never disappoints you. He comes to work every night. ~ Bobby Orr

This may sound like a bunch of psychobabble, but the truth is that we are all filled with contradictions; personality is fluid not black and white. And, well…we are all both strong
and weak. That's what it means to be human. We all have flaws, weaknesses. The real strength is when we can admit these to ourselves and become able to show them to others. ~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn