Talent Quotes

Becoming a writer is a lifelong journey. It cannot be learned in a day or even a month or a year. We will never fully learn all there is to know about our craft, and even if we did we wouldn't realize it. We are filled with self-doubt by nature, and many of us will work our entire lives to master the art of the written word without ever recognizing the true talent we possess. Writing is a personal journey of self-discovery and growth, and should be honored as such. If you wonder about my best writing, I would say it came without warning, in moments when I was most vulnerable - with the door shut and my heart split wide open. ~ Shanda Trofe Write From The Heart

Design is a way of life, a point of view. It involves the whole complex of visual communications: talent, creative ability, manual skill, and technical knowledge. Aesthetics and economics, technology and psychology are intrinsically related to the process. ~ Paul Rand

We all start out with the same alphabet. We are all unique. Talent is not the most important thing
discipline and dedication are. Craft can be learned but desire and longing are innate. Despite the demands of school and just being young, try to write SOMETHING every day
a description, a captured emotion, a simile, a metaphor. Read, for crying out loud! A writer must read the way a ball player must go to the ballfield every day to practice. Everything is possible in this world of ours
and so's publication. ~ Robert Cormier

Next, I'm holding a bag of clothes, being herded toward an open door filled with sunlight. My briefs are still looped around my ankles, so I'm waddling, my erection swinging in front of me like a blind man's cane, and the talent wrangler has the nerve to say, 'Thank you for coming... ~ Chuck Palahniuk

YOU CANT SAY YOU HAVE NO TALENT BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS A TALENT BUT ALL TALENT ARE NOT FOR EVERY ONE ~ Naomi

We must realize our own talents and, having realized, accept them; and play on them like a symphony in which all other instruments are harmonized to make a better universe. ~ Jeane Dixon

It is the time to tremendous awakening toward "inquisitiveness" with cross-cultural sharing through technology and inner insights. ~ Pearl Zhu

Overseas directors who want to work in Hollywood, the language barrier is not a problem. With the right talent, any director can be successful. ~ Kim Jee-woon

I'm quite sure that most writers would sustain real poetry if they could, but it takes devotion and talent. ~ Marguerite Young

Noah had always been my best friend, my partner in crime, my protector, my soul mate, the love of my life. My everything. I may not have gotten all the beauty, intelligence or talent, but I got Noah Stewart, the one "perfect" thing I could claim as mine and I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world ~ Alison G. Bailey

Like the street his gallery was on, Fortin had an attractive front, hiding quite a foul interior. He was opportunistic. He fed on the talent of others. Got rich on the talent of others. While most of the artists themselves barely scraped by, and took all the risks. ~ Louise Penny

Playing a plainer role means everything is dependent on the credentials of the actor, not the fact that they are as pretty as Julia Roberts. People start to look at their talent rather than their appearance. And playing the ugly part often means less time in the make-up chair, which is a great benefit on set. ~ Laura Carmichael

What you have in your mind, your talents, your native abilities, no one can take from you. When you die, you take them with you. Use them diligently while you are here. ~ Alfred Armand Montapert

What's yours? How will you serve the world? What do they need that your talent can provide? That's all you have to figure out. ~ Jim Carrey

Age is just a number, and your talent will never fail you. It has no expiry date. ~ Madhuri Dixit

The Nazis, for him, are merely available movie tropes
articulate monsters with a talent for sadism. By making the Americans cruel, too, he escapes the customary division of good and evil along national lines, but he escapes any sense of moral accountability as well. In a Tarantino war, everyone commits atrocities. Like all the director's work after 'Jackie Brown,' the movie is pure sensation. It's disconnected from feeling, and an eerie blankness
it's too shallow to be called nihilism
undermines even the best scenes. ~ David Denby

If you could start children right from the beginning with this thought, you'd see the effect it has on their lives. In fact, I did this with my own children. Again and again, I told them there was a reason why they were here, and they had to find out what that reason was for themselves. From the age of four years, they heard this. I also taught them to meditate when they were about the same age, and I told them, "I never, ever want you to worry about making a living. If you're unable to make a living when you grow up, I'll provide for you, so don't worry about that. I don't want you to focus on doing well in school. I don't want you to focus on getting the best grades or going to the best colleges. What I really want you to focus on is asking yourself how you can serve humanity, and asking yourself what your unique talents are. Because you have a unique talent that no one else has, and you have a special way of expressing that talent, and no one else has it. ~ Deepak Chopra

In whatever sport of field of endeavor you are interested, you should do whatever is necessary to compliment your God-given talent with proper mental preparation so as to do "the best you can." The criterion should be to fully exploit your potential rather than to win at any cost. What more could anyone ever ask of you than to be the best you possibly can? ~ Bob Cousy

My father died and left me his blessing and his business. His blessing brought no money into my pocket, and as to his business, it soon deserted me, for I was busy writing poetry, and could not attend to law, and my clients, though they had great respect for my talents, had no faith in a poetical attorney. ~ Washington Irving

Sometimes I go for days without speaking to a soul. I think, "I should make that call", but I put it off. Because there's something pleasurable about not talking. But then I love talking, so it's not that. But sometimes it can be nice. It's not like I sit here philosophizing, because I've no talent for that. It's just this thing about silence that's so wonderful. ~ Ingmar Bergman

I need people - theatrics and schmoozing and storytelling are part of my talent. ~ Joel Salatin

It's traditionally not federal policy to fund state and local salaries. It's done sometimes on a temporary basis or a grant basis. But it's not often done. And the reason is clear, because the federal government can't continue in perpetuity these programs. ~ Jim Talent

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work - brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.3 I am fascinated by this research ~ Lysa TerKeurst

In a world where celebrity equals talent, and where make-believe is called reality, it is most important to have real love, truth and stability in your life. ~ Bernie Brillstein

I think the talent is there to get to Super Bowl 5. ~ Aaron Rodgers

The proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they have value or not. Their self-esteem is determined by where they are judged to be on the ladders of worldly success. They feel worthwhile as individuals if the numbers beneath them in achievement, talent, beauty, or intellect are large enough. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

My own gut feeling is that everyone's psychic ... and it's so ingrained a part of us that we very rarely notice it. The talent may be largely preventative, and that keeps it from being noticed, too. ~ Stephen King

Maybe the idea of being a rockstar or being the one who's recording or playing, sort of doesn't really matter as much anymore, when you're surrounded by great musicians who bring their spirit, their own talent. ~ Adrian Grenier

You don't have to be successful on a grand scale like winning a talent competition or writing a New York Times bestseller - if you have enough small things that you can be successful at then eventually they outshine all your failures. ~ Lindsey Rietzsch

People tend to believe that good fortune consists of equal parts talent, hard work, and sheer luck. It's hard to deny the roles of the latter two. As to talent, I would only say it consists primarily in finding the right moment to step in. ~ Jack McDevitt

I've always had a talent for recognizing when I am in a moment worth being nostalgic for. ~ Lena Dunham

In the contest between talent and hard work as to which is the more important element of success, there's no comparison. A mediocre talent with lots of hard work will go further than a stellar talent who coasts. ~ David Joyner

Emmitt Smith has run past legends, danced with stars and posed for the sculptor crafting his Hall of Fame bust. He's built upon his athletic talents by working hard, seizing opportunities and reaching out to others for advice when he needed it. ~ Don Yaeger

I tell people 'America's Got Talent' is the best summer job you could have - you get to watch people strive for their dreams all summer long. So when you see me rooting for these people or dancing on the side of the stage, that's what I'd be doing if I was watching this show at home! ~ Nick Cannon

MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR. AT LEAST, YOU GET TO READ STUFF THAT'S WRITTEN BY PEOPLE WHO CAN WRITE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR, YOU DON'T NEED ANY SPECIAL TALENT, YOU JUST HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT SOMEONE WANTS YOU TO SEE - TO WHAT MAKES SOMEONE ANGRIEST, OR THE MOST EXCITED IN SOME OTHER WAY. IT'S SO EASY!; I THINK THAT'S WHY THERE ARE SO MANY ENGLISH MAJORS! ~ John Irving

Movements in literature were not caricatures - in the sense that they actually functioned as an ideology in politics does. As now a monopolistic ideology in politics prevails in the literature as well a single movement prevails: that of networking as a literary quality. Quality = networking is the magic formula: take a Krijn Peter Hesselink, never managed to score a positive review but reviews are old news: it is only referential authority trickling down from that network pyramid that counts. Thus, nowadays its perfectly possible to be on top of the Pyramid without ever getting a positive review, or - even worse - I even see people rising in literary ranks that have never written any books at all. Ergo, your point that another ideology would make a 'caricature' of literary history is exactly the same reasoning used by neoliberals to deconstruct any political change: another ideology? Impossible, because they no longer exist, only we still exist.

In this way you get a pyramid shape you also see in popular music. It's still the bands from the 70's and 80's who earn the big money. New talent can't really play ball anymore. This of course embedded in a sauce of eternal talent shows, because the incumbent males have to just keep pretending they are everyone's benefactors. In the literature its the same: it is still Pfeijffer that gets the large sums of money from the Foundation of Literature, and it's still Samuel Vriezen pretending that that doesn't matter.

Martijn Benders

Too many people have refused to begin running or have quickly dropped out of running programs because they 'have no talent for it.' Ridiculous. Talent has nothing to do with it. The only thing that matters is mental discipline. ~ Amby Burfoot

Talent finds its models, methods, and ends in society, exists for exhibition, and goes to the soul only for power to work. Genius is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture from within. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is the exercise of talent, along the lines of excellence. ~ Aristotle.

I seem to have a talent for writing endings that seem just right to me but that frustrate other people. ~ Jonathan Dee

It's just that none of us had the wit or talent to make them into songs. We made them into life, which much messier, and more time consuming, and leaves nothing for anybody to whistle. ~ Nick Hornby

I've viewed myself as slightly above average in talent. And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening work ethic. ~ Will Smith

I've always believed in my talent. And I've always had more guts than talent. ~ Dolly Parton

I just want to know if I'm truly not in the NFL, it's because of talent. Let it be because of my talents. But you've got to prove that I can't play this game. If you look at the film, clearly I can. So, I'll leave it at that. ~ Michael Sam

Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads. ~ Erica Jong

Rubens discovered a peculiar thing: memory does not make films, it makes photographs. What he recalled from any of the women were at most a few mental photographs. He didn't recall their coherent motions; he visualized even their short gestures not in all their fluent fullness, but only in the rigidity of a single second. His erotic memory provided him with a small album of pornographic pictures but no pornographic film. And when I say an album of pictures, that is an exaggeration, for all he had was some seven or eight photographs. These photos were beautiful, they fascinated him, but their number was after all depressingly limited: seven, eight fragments of less than a second each, that's what remained in his memory of his entire erotic life, to which he had once decided to devote all his strength and talent. I see Rubens sitting at a table with his head supported on the palm of his hand, looking like Rodin's Thinker. What is he thinking about? If he has made peace with the idea that his life has narrowed down to sexual experiences and these again to only seven still pictures, seven photographs, he would at least like to hope that in some corner of his memory there may be concealed some eighth, ninth, or tenth photograph. That's why he is sitting with his head leaning on the palm of his hand. He is once again trying to evoke individual women and find some forgotten photograph for each one of them. ~ Milan Kundera

In a dispassionate comparison of the relative values of human and robotic spaceflight, the only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure. But only a tiny number of Earth's six billion inhabitants are direct participants. For the rest of us, the adventure is vicarious and akin to that of watching a science fiction movie. At the end of the day, I ask myself whether the huge national commitment of technical talent to human spaceflight and the ever-present potential for the loss of precious human life are really justifiable. ~ James Van Allen

If you utilize the talent that was put in you, you can master everything they said you couldn't do. ~ K-Rino

If I refuse to step out in a gift or skill that God has given me because I'm afraid or lazy, I may be behaving the same way as the steward with one talent. ~ Bob Lotich

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist. ~ Isaac Asimov

You can't be in the tech community ... without realizing there's a big shortage of talent. ~ Mitch Kapor

Everything in life turns out to be a distraction from the real thing you want to do. There are a million distractions and when I was a kid I was very disciplined. I knew that the other kids weren't. I was the one able to do the thing, not because I had more talent, maybe less, but because they simply weren't applying themselves. ~ Woody Allen

Our people are slow to learn the wisdom of sending character instead of talent to Congress. Again and again they have sent a man of great acuteness, a fine scholar, a fine forensic orator, and some master of the brawls has crunched him up in his hands like a bit of paper. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you keep in secret what would have been used to help you, you will never be helped! Your gifts make way for you to lead; use them well! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

We might make a public moan in the newspapers about the decay of conscience, but in private conversation, no matter what crimes a man may have committed or how cynically he may have debased his talent or his friends, variations on the answer Yes, but I did it for the money, satisfy all but the most tiresome objections. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

We have something very valuable, for which we have not yet found an application in this life ~ Sunday Adelaja

In speaking of the capitalists who strive only for profit, only to get rich, I do not want to say that these are the most worthless people capable of doing nothing else. Many of them undoubtedly possess great organising talent, which I would not dream of denying. We Soviet people learn a lot from the capitalists. But if you mean people who are prepared to reconstruct the world, of course you will not be able to find them in the ranks of those who faithfully serve the cause of profit..The capitalist is riveted in profit and nothing can tear him away from it. ~ Joseph Stalin

Pure talent and charisma and like gods they were terrible together. Awful. A gorgeous nightmare. ~ Jess Walter

The ability to portray people in still life and in motion requires the highest measure of intuition and talent. ~ Albert Einstein

I couldn't add my talent, which is prodigious, to a defense of someone even accused of hurting a child. ~ Lynne Stewart

because talent alone doesn't make an artist ~ Maureen Johnson

I've written about the giving of trust as though it were a simple formula for building loyalty. But it isn't simple at all. The talent that is an essential ingredient of leadership tells the leader whom to trust and how much to trust and when to trust. The rule is (as with children) that trust be given slightly in advance of demonstrated trustworthiness. But not too much in advance. You have to have an unerring sense of how much the person is ready for. Setting people up for failure doesn't make them loyal to you; you have to set them up for success. Each time you give trust in advance of demonstrated performance, you flirt with danger. If you're risk-averse, you won't do it. And that's a shame, because the most effective way to gain the trust and loyalty of those beneath you is to give the same in equal measure. ~ Tom DeMarco

All great and successful people stayed alone with themselves to develop their gift ~ Sunday Adelaja

Politics, as he occasionally said, required three unchanging talents and
no virtues. More politicians, he claimed, had been destroyed by virtue than by any other cause; and the talents he enumerated in this fashion. The first talent was the ability to choose the winning side. Failing that, the second talent was the ability to extricate oneself from the losing side. And the third talent was never to make an enemy. ~ Howard Fast

Your money, your singleness, marriage, talent
and time, they were loaned to you to show the world that Christ is
Divine ~ LeCrae

Google, the internet world, the internet power, and the internet advantages, where, there, all the monopolies die and disappear, and the talent is visible to the globe. ~ Ehsan Sehgal

But later that night, as I brush my teeth in the bathroom, I overhear Baba and Thaya Jaan talking in the guest room next door. "

All this music all the time. You shouldn't let Amina do so much singing and piano," Thaya Jaan says.

I stop brushing and strain to hear every word, trying to follow.

"But, Bhai Jaan, she is so talented. Her music teachers say she is really quite gifted."

"Yes, but music is forbidden in Islam. It's a waste of time and has no benefit. Instead of filling her head with music, she should focus on memorizing Quran."

The toothpaste suddenly tastes bitter. I spit it out and wait to hear what Baba will say. Surely he'll say the things he's always told me, like how music makes him feel closer to God and that my talent is a gift from Allah.

But all Baba says is, "Yes, Bhai Jaan," and then he stays quiet.

I am numb. Is Thaya Jaan right? Am I doing something wrong? ~ Hena Khan

Luck is a component that a lot of people in the arts sometimes fail to recognise: that you can have talent, perseverance, patience, but without luck you will not have a successful career. ~ Bryan Cranston

When older people ask me, "How have you been so successful after age 65?" I tell them, "Anyone who's reached 65 years of age has had a world of experience behind him. He's had his ups and downs and all the trials and tribulations of life. He certainly ought to be able to gather something out of that, something he can put together at the end of his 65 years so he can get a new start." The way I see it, a man's life is written by the way he lives it. It's using any talent God has given him, even if his talent is cooking food or running a good motel.

You can reach higher, think bigger, grow stronger and live deeper in this country of ours than anywhere else on Earth. The rules here give everybody a chance to win. If my story is different, it's because my life really began at age 65 when most folks have already called it a day.

I'd been modestly successful before I hit 65. After that I made millions. When they're about 60 or 65, a lot of people feel that life is all over for them. Too many of them just sit and wait until they die or they become a burden to other people. The truth is they can make a brand new life for themselves if they just don't give up and hunker down.

I want to tell people, "You're only as old as you feel or as you think, and no matter what your age there's plenty of work to be done." I don't want to sound like I'm clearing my throat and giving advice about how a man can be successful. I'm not all puffed up. My main trade secr ~ Harland Sanders

Perhaps the chief cause which has retarded the progress of poetry in America, is the want of that exclusive cultivation, which so noble a branch of literature would seem to require. Few here think of relying upon the exertion of poetic talent for a livelihood, and of making literature the profession of life. The bar or the pulpit claims the greater part of the scholar's existence, and poetry is made its pastime. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I do not fear that "future generations will not read novels," etc. It is probably a complete misunderstanding to conceive of serious art in categories of production, market, readers, supply and demand( ... )art is not the fabrication of stories for readers but a spiritual cohabitation, something so tense and so separate from science, even contradictory to it, that there can be no competition between them. If someone fine, dignified, prolific, brilliant (this is how one ought to speak of artists this is the language art demands) is born in the future, if someone unique and unrepeatable is born, a Bach, a Rembrandt, then he will win people over, charm and seduce them ... ~ Witold Gombrowicz

Tony Bennett said to me, "Wow, your talent is amazing." Maybe he's a bore, maybe he's a jerk, but when he said that to me, I didn't need anything more than that. ~ Elaine Stritch

My talents fall within definite limitations. I am not as versatile an actress as some think. ~ Greta Garbo

But only if I believe that my directing talents will improve the material I'd be working on. I want to make sure I don't sacrifice beautiful material on the altar of my direction. ~ Andre Braugher

[John C.] Calhoun was a minority spokesman in a democracy, a particularist in an age of nationalism, a slaveholder in an age of advancing liberties, and an agrarian in a furiously capitalistic country. His weakness was to be inhumanly schematic and logical, which is only to say that he thought as he lived. His mind, in a sense, was too masterful - it imposed itself upon realities. The great human, emotional, moral complexities of the world escaped him because he had no private training for them, had not even the talent for friendship, in which he might have been schooled. It was easier for him to imagine, for example, that the South had produced upon its slave base a better culture than the North because he had no culture himself, only a quick and muscular mode of thought. It may stand as a token of Calhoun's place in the South's history that when he did find culture there, at Charleston, he wished a plague upon it. ~ Richard Hofstadter

Foolishness, that's the word for humor. To be stupid it's not a talent or something which should be paid attention it is showing what mankind is really. If you want this join this! ~ Deyth Banger

The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny. ~ Abraham Verghese

Intellectual talent will give us the upper-hand in the game of life. Fortunately, we all can develop it ~ Julian Pencilliah

Genius begins where talent ends. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Little details have special talents in creating big problems! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Another school of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either accepted the piebald view or some modification of it; as, for instance, Silas Durgan, who was heard to assert that "if he chooses to show enself at fairs he'd make his fortune in no time," and being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with the one talent. Yet another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of accounting for everything straight away. Between ~ H.G.Wells

Make no mistake, no one has ever become great by mistake. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

as much as talent counts, effort counts twice. ~ Angela Duckworth

Possessing talent is nothing more than the continuous pursuit of a life-long interest. ~ Bob Ross

If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being. ~ Quentin Crisp

Everyone has at least one talent. It's just that some talents are pointless. ~ Andrea Kneeland

Talent is everywhere, winning attitude is not. ~ Dan Gable

If you work harder than somebody else, chances are you'll beat him though he has more talent than you. ~ Bart Starr

It would be wonderful to become what Oprah has become: she is in such a class of her own, as an entrepreneur, as a performer and an icon. The idea of building a series of programmes and choosing people that I think have talent to do them would be a very interesting idea. I would love to show that television can have soul, depth and range. ~ Charlie Rose

I still don't know if I'm good enough or if it's a calling or a vocation or something, but the talent part is out. My desire to do it is undoubted. I just love doing this. ~ Chris Isaak

I'm not comfortable with the idea of my sex appeal, but I know in my job I have to use it. I wish I could say I got to this point in my career based on my talent, but I don't think that's true. ~ Matthew Morrison

The ability to listen to smart people who disagree with you is a rare talent - but a president should have it. ~ Anonymous

It takes good clients to make a good advertising agency. Regardless of how much talent an ad agency may have, it is ineffective without good products and services to advertise. ~ Morris Hite

It's fine to have talent, but talent is the last of it. In an acting career, as in an acting performance, you've got to have vitality. The secret of successful acting is identical with a woman's beauty secret: joy in living. ~ Rosalind Russell

The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land. ~ Thomas Jefferson

These days, startling though the thought is, we control our own legacy. We're not passive, we're not helpless. We're earth-movers. We can become Earth-restorers and Earth-guardians. We still have time and talent, and we have a great many choices. As I said at the beginning of this mental caravan, our mistakes are legion, but our imagination is immeasurable. ~ Diane Ackerman

I guess I just look at talent as a very subjective thing. I mean, if you never tried playing an oboe, how do you know you're not the most talented oboe player ever? The point is that if you don't love it, then it doesn't matter. ~ Steven Soderbergh

The dichotomy is delicious. Inside the fantasy genre, I try to present women who need to solve real problems like having no voice in community, or no right to work; no access to capital to start a business. No reinforcement for talent. ~ Stella Atrium

If anything is evident about people who manage money, it is that the task attracts a very low level of talent, one that is protected in its highly imperfect profession by the mystery that is thought to enfold the subject of economics in general and of money in particular. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

The depth of talent in Israel is just spectacular. I was very excited by it because when you cast in LA, you tend to see a lot of the same faces on lists for various parts. ~ Tim Kring