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Performance Quotes

Browse 261 quotes about Performance.

Performance Quotes

“This was our last night. We only had one curtain call, Bree. And I thought they were going to give us a standing ovation, but no-o-o-. Do you know why half the audience stood up?" "To get a head start on the traffic," Bree said. "To get a head start on the traffic," Antonia agreed in indignation. "I mean, here we are, dancing and singing our little guts out, and all those folks want to do is get to bed early. I ask you, whatever happened to common courtesy? Whatever happened to decent manners? Doesn't anyone care about craft anymore? And on top of that, it's not even nice.”

PlayHumorExpectationsDisappointmentTheatreComplainingSistersPolitenessPerformanceRudeness
Book:Defending Angels
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“Girls are the only ones who can really give each other close attention, the kind we equate with being loved. They noticed what we want noticed. And that's what I did for Tamar, I responded to her symbols. To the style of her hair and clothes and the smell of her L'Air Du Temps perfume. Like this was data that mattered. Signs that reflected something of her inner self. I took her beauty personally.”

BeautyGirlsFemininityPerformance
Book:The Girls
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“Any performer tries to perform music as if for the first time, with all that energy and excitement that comes from discovering a new piece--maybe trying to recreate the memory of falling in love with a piece when hearing it first as a child--and just as people regularly say of a brilliant conductor that they seem to conduct as if recreating the energy an audience must have felt when the piece was first played decades, even centuries, before, so too I think we need to communicate our knowledge with the passion we first encountered as children.”

PassionEmotionMusicPerformanceConductingMusicology
Author:Armando Iannucci
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“Dave and Serge...played the Fiddler's Elbow as if it were Giants Stadium, and even though it was acoustic, they just about blew the place up. They were standing on chairs adn lying on the floor, they were funny, they charmed everyone in the pub apart from an old drunk ditting next to the drum kit...who put his fingers firmly in his ears during Serge's extended harmonica solo. It was utterly bizarre and very moving: most musicians wouldn't have bothered turning up, let alone almost killing themselves. And I was reminded...how rarely one feels included in a live show. Usually you watch, and listen, and drift off, and the band plays well or doesn't and it doesn't matter much either way. It can actually be a very lonely experience. But I felt a part of the music, and a part of the people I'd gone with, and, to cut this short before the encores, I didn't want to read for about a fortnight afterward. I wanted to write, but I didn't want to read no book. I was too itchy, too energized, and if young people feel like that every night of the week, then, yes, literature 's dead as a dodo. (Nick's thoughts after seeing Marah at a little pub called Fiddler's Elbow.)”

PassionReadingMusicExcitementPerformanceLive Band
Book:The Polysyllabic Spree
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“People easily become familiar with what you teach them practically than what you tell them verbally. Action fixes images in their minds and they can carry those images for a long period.”

PeopleLeadershipLeaderTeachTrainWordsFood For ThoughtMemoryIsraelmore AyivorPersonal DevelopmentFamiliarLeadersActionsMind PowerActPerformanceMindsImagesPracticalTheoriesTake ActionsImaginationsPerformVerbalMemorizePracticallyVerbally
Book:Leaders' Ladder
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“Not one word was said by Moses or Aaron as to the wickedness of depriving a human being of his liberty. Not a word was said in favor of liberty. Not the slightest intimation that a human being was justly entitled to the product of his own labor. Not a word about the cruelty of masters who would destroy even the babes of slave mothers. It seems to me wonderful that this God did not tell the king of Egypt that no nation could enslave another, without also enslaving itself; that it was impossible to put a chain around the limbs of a slave, without putting manacles upon the brain of the master. Why did he not tell him that a nation founded upon slavery could not stand? Instead of declaring these things, instead of appealing to justice, to mercy and to liberty, he resorted to feats of jugglery. Suppose we wished to make a treaty with a barbarous nation, and the president should employ a sleight-of-hand performer as envoy extraordinary, and instruct him, that when he came into the presence of the savage monarch, he should cast down an umbrella or a walking stick, which would change into a lizard or a turtle; what would we think? Would we not regard such a performance as beneath the dignity even of a president? And what would be our feelings if the savage king sent for his sorcerers and had them perform the same feat? If such things would appear puerile and foolish in the president of a great republic, what shall be said when they were resorted to by the creator of all worlds? How small, how contemptible such a God appears!”

GodFeelingsMotherPresidentJusticeBrainLibertyMagicBibleLaborDignityMercySlaverySlaveFoolishCrueltyGreatRepublicEgyptWickednessMosesEntitlementKingPerformanceJehovahSmallYahwehThe BibleExodusSavageChainAaronLizardTurtleMonarchContemptibleSorcerersManaclesPuerileJugglery
Book:Some Mistakes of Moses
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“When our hopes for performance are not completely met, realistic optimism involves accepting what cannot now be changed, rather than condemning or second-guessing ourselves. Focusing on the successful aspects of performance (even when the success is modest) promotes positive affect, reduces self-doubt, and helps to maintain motivation (e.g., McFarland & Ross, 1982).... Nevertheless, realistic optimism does not include or imply expectations that things will improve on their own. Wishful thinking of this sort typically has no reliable supporting evidence. Instead, the opportunity-seeking component of realistic optimism motivates efforts to improve future performances on the basis of what has been learned from past performances.”

SuccessLearningAcceptanceExpectationsOptimismImprovementPerformanceSecond GuessingRealistic Optimism
Author:Sandra L. Schneider
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“Design your day thinking that you have limited mental resources, knowing that taking time to replenish them will not only help you be less stressed and better able to resist distractions, but also more creative. We know how different activities affect our physical energy in the world, such as being with family or friends, coordinating a complex event, or taking a walk in nature. In the digital world, what taxes your mental energy? What things do you do that replenish your resources? What kind of rote activity relaxes you? At the end of the day, you want to feel energetic and positive. Don’t end up with your tank of resources on reserve when it’s only early afternoon.”

WorkAttentionTechnologyPsychologyFocusWell BeingPerformance
Book:Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity
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“We know from project management that there is usually slippage, and tasks almost always take longer than what one envisions. There is also no room for fitting human well-being into task schedules. We need to instead relearn what designing a day should be in the twenty-first century digital world. It should include strategies to not exhaust yourself, and to improve your well-being. And it includes understanding your own rhythm of attentional states, and the fact that you have limited and precious cognitive resources.”

WorkAttentionTechnologyPsychologyFocusPerformance
Book:Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity
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“Our mirror neurons – specialised nerve cells that allow us to pick up on how other people are feeling – allow us to feel the fear in others. And when we see people feel the fear but take on the challenge anyway, we are inspired. It is a signature moment for performance under pressure.”

FearInspirePressureChallengeFeelPerformance
Book:Perform Under Pressure: Change the Way You Feel, Think and Act Under Pressure
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“In an era when Fear of Missing Out has its own universally understood acronym, recuperative rest and relaxation are not always regarded as the intensely worthwhile pursuits that they are. Instead, we are harrassed into believing that we must be constantly available to be of value, that peak productivity and performance are directly related to presenteeism, and that to snooze is to lose. This couldn't be more wrong.”

HomeSuccessProductivityInteriorsRelaxationRestPerformancePresenteeism
Book:Happy Inside: How to harness the power of home for health and happiness
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“Language is a form of performance after all, because you adapt your mind to the other side when you speak or write. You must express yourself confined within certain words and rules that are beyond your rule, or else the other side won’t understand you. But to adapt means to die—not vice versa—because the moment you consider the other mind more, you detach from your own.”

MindPhilosophyLiteratureLanguageExperienceWordsAdaptationDetachmentPerformanceConfination
Author:Sov8840
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“Once status, self-image, and the opinions of others are prioritized above all else, players become increasingly on edge. Performance spaces are seen as dangerous, and players feel threatened by the possibility of not being enough. Once they feel this danger, their playfulness decreases.”

SportsDevelopmentStressMindsetCoachingAdolescencePerformanceAthletes
Book:B.E.T. On It: A Psychological Approach to Coaching Gen Z and Beyond
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“The ability to self-regulate is important when dealing with stress. The demands of competition, the noise from the stands, and the team dynamics will cause stress for athletes. These stressors will be compounded by the athlete’s personal life and the stress they carry into these performance situations. Overall, athletes will get gripped by stress, whether in a championship game or a mundane practice.”

DevelopmentStressCoachingPerformanceNervous SystemAthletes
Book:B.E.T. On It: A Psychological Approach to Coaching Gen Z and Beyond
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“Many theories have been advanced to explain racial gaps in performance, of which these are the most common: black and Hispanic schools do not get enough money, their classes are too big, students are segregated from whites, minorities do not have enough teachers of their own race. Each of these explanations has been thoroughly investigated. Urban schools, where non-whites are concentrated, often get more money than suburban white schools, so blacks and Hispanics are not short-changed in budget or class size. Teacher race has no detectable effect on learning (Asians, for example, outperform whites regardless of who teaches them), nor do whites in the classroom raise or lower the scores of students of other races. Money is not the problem. From the early 1970s to the 2006-2007 school year per-pupil spending more than doubled in real terms. The Cato Institute calculates that when capital costs are included, the Los Angeles School District spends more than $25,000 per student per year, and the District of Columbia spends more than $28,000. Neither district gets good results. Demographic change can become a vicious cycle: As more minorities and immigrants enter a school system average achievement falls. More money and effort is devoted to these groups, squeezing gifted programs, music and art, and advanced placement courses. The better-performing students leave, and standards fall further.”

RaceEducationEvolutionDiversityGeneticsPerformanceDemographics
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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