Performance Quotes

I hate being out there with those garbage men. They don't get you the ball.

Improve your performance by improving your attitude.

It is obvious that the performance of a stock last year or last month is no reason, per se, to either own it or to not own it now. It is obvious that an inability to "get even" in a security that has declined is of no importance. It is obvious that the inner warm glow that results from having held a winner last year is of no importance in making a decision as to whether it belongs in an optimum portfolio this year.

I can't let in the light.It will destroy my performance like light destroys film

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

When I discipline myself to eat properly, live morally, exercise regularly, grow mentally and spiritually, and not put any drugs or alcohol in my body, I have given myself the freedom to be at my best, perform at my best, and reap all the rewards that go along with it.

Whether it's Google or Apple or free software, we've got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.

When I'm on stage, I'm not me playing me. I'm somebody else doing me. I could never go on stage and be like, "Hey, I'm Mike Tyson. My mother and father was in the sex industry." That's the politically correct way to say it, but I would really say, "My mother and father were pimps and whores. This is my life." I could never do that as Mike Tyson. Because I'd feel sorry for myself. But if I could be objective about it and be somebody else, portraying Mike Tyson, saying this story, then it's easy sailing.

I don't think about one trick or the other, they just happen.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression - all of that is very important.

On stage it's just a wild setting - we have a big screen - hecklers, I'm fighting. It's entertainment, but I want to pierce [the audience's] souls and have them think about what I have to say.

Leadership is defined by results not attributes.

I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down.

Your self-image should not come from the job you do but from how well you do your job.

Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robust periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.

I got my first laugh when my mother entered me in a baby contest.

When I hear that high-pitched sound of all those people screaming together, it's like, I want to get on stage right now. It's the most amazing feeling.

I'm not a person who likes authority. I just love the fact that it's up to me, and I go straight to the audience.

When I first heard Elvis perform "Bridge Over Trouble Water" it was unbelivable,and I thought to myself, how the hell can I compete with that?

It's difficult enough for a young person to put his soul on the line in front of a lot of drunken people without having that hanging over his head, too.

What difference does the uniform make? You don't hit with it.

I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.

Nothing is so great an adversary to those who make it their business to please as expectation.

The best players in the game want the responsibility of being the best player. The reality is the game has changed from now back to '87. It's a lot tighter checking. The players are better today. So, that makes it harder for him just in that fact. We can't rely solely on Mario [Lemieux] to carry this team. We're not relying on that.

People who talk well but do nothing are like musical intruments; the sound is all they have to offer.

Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public. Once you step on stage you're licensed to do that. It's an understood relationship. You walk on stage - it's your job.

The Ford Falcon holds the proud title of Slowest Car Ever Built. In certain areas of the country you can go to a stoplight and find Falcon drivers who pressed down on their accelerators in 1963 and are still waiting for their cars to move.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

An ounce of performance is worth more than a pound of preachment.

I hate performers who debase great works of art; I long for their annihilation.

It is hard to find something where you can go off as much as I do in stand-up, but I think stand-up allows me that freedom where you can really go off and have a good time.

If you want it, measure it. If you can't measure it, forget it.

If you can do it better than me, then you do it.

People listen to music with cavemen ears: Is it a bird song or the call of a lion? The audience at a musical is dancing in their hearts.

An organization that is not facing up to people who are not getting the job done, is going to have difficulties.

You got to constantly be in character.

I'm probably the only guy in hockey who can win a scoring title and everybody is saying I had a bad year. I don't worry about it.

Now must we sing and sing the best we can,But first you must be told your character:Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.

The effective executive knows that it is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass. She therefore makes sure she puts into the leadership position, into the standard-setting, the performance-making position the person who has the strength to do the outstanding pacesetting job. This always requires focus on the one strength of a person and dismissal of weaknesses as irrelevant unless they hamper the full deployment of the available strength.

When you walk out onstage in front of 65,000 people, it can bring you to tears.

Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person.

Being alone onstage is like legalized insanity.

The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

I don't mind looking to the camera -​ it's people that throw me.

I was just letting the shots fly. You know, I don't leave any bullets in the chamber.

At the end of each day, you should play back the tapes of your performance. The results should either applaud you or prod you.

When you want to put something into your part that is not in the play, you must ask the author-or some other author-to lead up to the interpolation for you. Never forget that the effect of a line may depend not on its delivery, but on something said earlier in the play, either by somebody else or by yourself, and that if you change it, it may be necessary to change the whole first act as well.

Adequacy is the enemy of excellence.

Just trust your instincts. There's an old saying in golf, you've studied the swing many times, and you practice and practice, but when you stand over the ball, you just have to trust your swing. And you trust it. And if you don't trust it, you'll ruin it; your brain will take over.

You're always as good as your last movie and that's the same with politics. If you are successful with a certain policy, then you're hot; if you're successful with the economy, or bringing down the unemployment rate, then you're hot. But if you're not successful, then things go south very quickly.

There were so many fellows ranked over me I couldn't just whoop them all. I had to out-shadow them by talking.

Sometimes with a comedy it's just having the instinct of how real you play it and what level you want it.

I get a lot of return business. I think it's all those years I put in traveling around the country; people saw me before and had a good time so they want to see me again.

If you want to talk to me after the show, I'd be surprised.

I resent performing for frisking idiots who don't know anything.

Your input determines your outlook. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future.

I saw Danny Kaye in a movie, and he was doing voices and faces on that big, big screen and making whole audiences laugh. It was just an instant hookup.

You can't think and hit the ball at the same time.

I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate.

Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another.