Performance Quotes

The mall tour was right off of my second record, before it came out. It was very different. I did an acoustic performance every day in a different mall! One interesting thing I remember is playing 'My Happy Ending' a lot, and that song was so new that I remember getting emotional.

It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises-but only performance is reality.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

I have never taken any substance to enhance my performance.

I'd like to think my performance is today. I never try to - it's so, as you know, watching me, I have a beginning, middle and ending. But every night the show changes and I relate to an audience and I relate to the young people.

My parents were really encouraging. But I had to teach them the proper way you respond to an actor after seeing a play - regardless of whether you like their performance you tell them how great they are because they have to go on again the next night.

I offer my performance as prayer for someone I've worked with as an actor or someone who has died. The image that comes into my head as I walk to the stage, I offer that performance up for that person.

I've never been a really big fan of theatre. I don't know why. It's so much for effort. It's much more difficult for me than stage acting just because of the pressure that's piled on you and you have to learn the entire performance by heart.

Personality is essential. It is in every work of art. When someone walks on stage for a performance and has charisma, everyone is convinced that he has personality. I find that charisma is merely a form of showmanship. Movie stars usually have it. A politician has to have it.

Actors should be overheard, not listened to, and the audience is 50 percent of the performance.

If the seams are showing, there is something wrong with the performance or the construction of the piece. This idea is completely at odds with our modern visual experience, because everything today is based on montage.

So I won an Oscar. It's amazing. I've got that for the rest of my life for a performance I am proud of. It nearly killed me. I am really proud of the film. That's it, moving on.

I take the longest to get ready of anyone. I've been going in two hours before the show every performance.

I always find that 90% of the performance, for me, is about what comes from inside.

Claude Rains was what we call an actor's actor. He was very involved with himself and his performance.

That's the only way to do it. Just like an actor. You can get a great performance if you do a bunch of takes and edit it. You find the moments and string them together.

A lawyer's performance in the courtroom is responsible for about 25 percent of the outcome; the remaining 75 percent depends on the facts.

Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.

Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only in race horses and women.

The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.

There's no performance where I never have to think about setting up a phrase or making a technical adjustment while I'm performing.

On my best days, such as when I was a junior in high school coming off a 42-point performance and near triple-double, my dad was there to tell me I haven't arrived yet and bring me back to reality.

Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance.

I'm much more energetic now; you might say live performance is my mission.

Whenever there were parties, I wasn't invited because I began to be like that character. In a way, that contributed to the success of the performance.

I try to get the best performance an actor can give.

There's nothing like a play. It's so immediate and every performance is different. As an actor, you have the most control over what the audience is seeing.

Heath Ledger's performance in 'The Dark Knight' quite simply changed the game. He raised the bar not just for actors in superhero films, but young actors everywhere; for me. His performance was dark, anarchic, dizzying, free, and totally, thrillingly, dangerous.

All the dialogue on tape, and we'd play the tape in performance. Then I thought it'd be interesting if the actor's repeated what they heard on the tape, but at a slower speed, so we'd get a web of language.

I started using film as part of live theatre performance - what used to be called performance art - and I became intrigued by film.