Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I find respect for a mediocre British composer, as opposed to a really good American, ridiculous because they automatically respect a composer if he's from England.
The difference between a remarkable life and a mediocre one is not nearly as large as you might imagine. Nope, we all pretty much start out with the same raw stuff.
I don't think anybody's goal is to be mediocre. I think everybody should want to be the best. I've always felt that way. I want to be at the best at everything I do.
I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.
What helps change bad writing into mediocre writing is editing. Editing is in bad shape in print journalism, and is in virtually nonexistent shape in online journalism.
My high-school years were so mediocre - I moved out when I was 16 and started living with my girlfriend who was 10 years older. Apart from that, I was just a video nerd.
Do the best you can. But I want to emphasize that it be the very best. We are too prone to be satisfied with mediocre performance. We are capable of doing so much better.
My limited theater experience was when I was a kid starting out: two or three plays. I was good in one and mediocre in the other. My problem is that I have other interests.
No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
This was a really big opportunity. This script was even mediocre. The idea was great, but Jay came on with his guys made it great and very specific. It all came together well.
At one time if you were a black writer you had to be one of the best writers in the world to be published. You had to be great. Now you can be good. Mediocre. And that's good.
Technology is a bit of a double-edged sword. Used right, it's a wonderful tool, but unfortunately, it makes it easier for a lot of mediocre people to get really crappy ideas out.
When a band becomes as truly iconic as the Velvet Underground, there will often be a box set released, overburdened with mediocre material that dilutes what was fine left on its own.
You can have a phenomenal technology with bad people; you're not gonna have much success. You can have mediocre technology with great people; they'll figure out a way to make a buck.
Yes, bad or mediocre ballets can be useful to the dancers and temporarily fun for the audience, but in the long run, the lowering of standards can only erode the art form we all love.
I took the LSAT. My score was decent. I had a plan that if my score was really well, then I might of just went to Yale or Harvard... But it was just mediocre. I can get into law school.
We sometimes received - and I would read - 200 manuscripts a week. Some of them were wonderful, some were terrible; most were mediocre. It was like the gifts of the good and bad fairies.
I performed adequately at school, but in comparison to my older brother, who set the record for the highest cumulative average for our high school, my performance was decidedly mediocre.
A good project but a poor director will always make a mediocre film, but an average script and good director can make a good film, as he will put in everything to make the film look good.
I've played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I'm mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute... Just not well.
Comedy can be harder because if you aren't making the audience laugh, they're going to turn on you quicker. They'll go along with mediocre drama more than they'll go along with mediocre comedy.
To sustain and become a musician of a certain calibre, you need to know and understand music completely. You need to have a good taste in music and should know your good music from mediocre ones.
There are lots of ways to make money in venture capital, and there are even more ways to be mediocre. The industry has too much money and too many smart people chasing too few great entrepreneurs.
There are pockets of great food in Spain, but there are also pockets of very mediocre food in Spain, and the same in Morocco and the same in Croatia and the same in Germany and the same in Austria.
If you want your company to succeed, you have to have the confidence in your business to take a bet on its future - to risk destroying a mediocre business model for the chance to have a strong one.
If you set out to write an adjective novel, you're setting out to write a mediocre novel; your allegiance is to the adjective, not to the story, and then that just sucks all the joy right out of it.
I'd rather do a great play than a mediocre play in New York. As much as I'd like to be seen in New York, that's not my driving motivation. My motivation is to play great roles, wherever they happen.
The usual key to getting films made seems to be a producer's terrier-like determination not to let it go. Unfortunately, such producers often seem prone to sinking their claws into mediocre projects.
The difference between mediocre, good and great is you're able to have the enthusiasm for prep, to work to prepare to win the same in January that you do in August, when everybody says they're excited.
I've never felt that I had to take a role in one of those mediocre but hugely budgeted romantic comedies because I want to wear beautiful dresses and have people think I'm pretty and that I get the guy.
Class I to XII wasn't much help; I was always a mediocre student. But when I pursued higher education and studied economics with theatre or psychology with science fiction, I got a whole new world view.
Many novelists take well-defined, precise characters, whose stories are sometimes of mediocre interest, and place them in an important historical context, which remains secondary in spite of everything.
Nobody ever starts out to make a mediocre, commercial film. You always think it's going to be something. And then, once you're done with your shooting, you have no control. You're just done, as an actor.
I think there are times when you're jamming with the universe, and other times when it feels like no matter how hard I work, no matter how good a person I am, I will always be punished for being mediocre.
I have definitely learnt in business that when you have a smart, engaged entrepreneur with good judgement they can really drive even a mediocre business forward so to me the entrepreneur is very important.
Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go so much further than people with vastly superior talent.
I thought that I would have a huge literary novel coming out when I was, like, 29. I quit my banking job, and I was halfway through my second novel - and I will never publish it, because it's very mediocre.
You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.
You can be mediocre, the way most actors are, and you can still be a top movie star, even if your movies are boring and predictable. All you have to do is know how to sell yourself, let yourself be manufactured.
I had to produce a complete page - or two or three - in one day. I took a lot of pride in my work, and I hated to do a mediocre job. Evidently, some of the writers enjoyed my work best of all for that very reason.
Well, I think the secret is if you have a lot of stocks, some will do mediocre, some will do okay, and if one of two of 'em go up big time, you produce a fabulous result. And I think that's the promise to some people.
I was a commercial girl. In drama school, I was a mediocre model occasionally to pick up some extra cash, and because clearly I'm not six feet tall, and I had baby weight, I would mainly just would do promotional stuff.
The fact is that Superman isn't around because he is the oldest superhero. He's still around because he is a great superhero. He's the guy that spawned the entire genre, and that didn't happen because it was a mediocre idea.
There are many mediocre entertainers who don't aspire to much more than fame and glory. It's very easy to have them as your role models because there aren't as many greats. Go back, discover the greats, and take it from there.
I see many founders waste too much time trying to work their networks and/or ultimately settle for mediocre but available candidates. You will definitely have to interview hard for cultural fit, but the best talent isn't cheap.
As for the reasons behind my retirement, they mostly center around simple fatigue and a fear that if I continue for many more years my work will begin to suffer, or at the very least ease into the graveyard of mediocre cartoons.
I think the more mediocre you are the better you do because people need to think you're their friend, they don't want to be threatened by you, you've got to be warm, you've got to be not too smart, not too pretty, not too anything.
I was a diligent little boy at my primary school and then I went to public school and became mediocre at most things and pretty rubbish at others. I had a really tough time. I didn't enjoy it at all. But it made me the man I am today.
Most of the time I feel stupid, insensitive, mediocre, talentless and vulnerable - like I'm about to cry any second - and wrong. I've found that when that happens, it usually means I'm writing pretty well, pretty deeply, pretty rawly.
As a practising lawyer, I was mediocre, but I worked hard as a law officer of the state government and on the private side. After becoming a judge, I maintained a low profile in other activities and concentrated only on judicial work.