Quotes About Talent

If you look at what Ben Affleck has gone on to do, as an actor and as a director, it's extraordinary. But if you look back at his career, I don't think it's surprising. From Good Will Hunting on down, the guy is a monster talent, and I think talent wins out, in the end. There's always the ebb and flow of any career, but I think talent wins out, in the end.

If you have talent, I believe that talent will win out. In other words, if you're a good broadcaster, if you're a funny comic, you'll be heard. If you know how to do a broadcast, if you're a good newsman, if you can see an event and describe it, you're going to be heard and you're going to be seen. So there's always room. Now with cable and satellite and Internet, it's endless. You could blog, you could be your own talent.

To discover that you can paint without special talent is a great revelation. An endless stream runs through you, enough to paint for lifetimes. Talent is universal. You can dip into that source to your heart's content. Everyone is good at what comes to them spontaneously. If nothing is put in your way, talent will meet you there.

I say that being a smart writer doesn't make you a good writer. There's obviously a difference between talent and intelligence. And it may be that at some point intelligence begins to impinge on talent, or talent on intelligence.

I place a higher value on work ethic than talent, because, in certain areas, you just need to cast, you need to cast actors with talent, you need to hire directors with talent, but I've worked with very talented people who have a poor work ethic, and the outcome is less desirable than people who are less talented and have an incredible work ethic.

nerve, not talent, is the one necessary and sufficient trait for success. (Wouldn't it be ideal if it were talent? But talent with no nerve is like the sound of one hand clapping.

Americans respect talent only insofar as it leads to fame, and we reserve our most fervent admiration for famous people who destroy their lives as well as their talent. The fatal flaws of Elvis, Judy, and Marilyn register much higher on our national applause meter than their living achievements. In Amerca, talent is merely a tool for becoming famous in life so you can become more famous in death - where all are equal.

Talent? That's not talent. Talent is Liza Minnelli tap dancing and singing at the same time. What I just saw was devastation. Dying man on the cross. Salvation in B minor.

Every person is born with a talent, and happiness depends on discovering that talent in time.

Everyone thinks that having a talent is a matter of luck; no one thinks that luck could be a matter of talent.

All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent.

If you're very talented and keep winning, you'll do just fine. It may take a while. But the talent is hard to identify and talent is hard to tell from luck. There's an awful lot of luck in this business. Past performance is not helpful in judging future performance.

Getting up on stage and being able to make people feel like their lives are slightly more special than they realize is my only talent, so that's what I use. I use my talent.

There are two wrong reactions to a rejection slip: deciding it's a final judgment on your story and/or talent, and deciding it's no judgment on your story and/or talent.

You need a particular talent only to want to please. I don't have this talent.

What a person is begins to betray itself when his talent weakens--when he stops showing what he can do. Talent, too, is ornamentation, and ornamentation, too, is a hiding place.

Great leaders have an ability, a characteristic of analyzing very good talent, and empowering that talent.

[Brad Furman] is incredibly collaborative, man. He's so respectful of talent, he has so much admiration for talent. He nurtures you, he lets you give input. Of course we'll debate if we disagree, that's just a healthy atmosphere to air your differences.

There is a lot of incredible talent out there, however, talent alone is not enough. Being a great singer does not matter, if you are not singing great songs. Having great songs will not be obvious to record executives if they are not professionally produced. Consistently performing those songs extremely well is essential.

I think there's an abundance of talent in America and there will never be not a lot of talent out there.

Some things I won't do for any amount of money. That's so demoralizing and goes against every principle that I hold. It's like, okay, some rich people can buy me because I'm a talented guy. They can buy talent. You can't buy it for yourself, but you can buy other people's talent to serve your purposes. And once an artist does that, he becomes like a plaything of the rich. You know, some of these wealthy collectors have paid lots of money for artwork that I already did, but I didn't do it with the intention of catering to them.

I can ask someone to let me into all aspects of their life for several years, but people have got to have that gift: that courage and that talent for opening their lives to the camera. Being candid is a gift, and that's what the audience responds to. Part of it is me asking, and part of it is just their inherent talent, which is what you are looking for when you make documentaries - people that are really going to let you in on what they are going through.

To do what others cannot do is talent. To do what talent cannot do is genius.

I decided at age 9, but I was reinforced at age 13 when a teacher told me I had talent. I can't say she really motivated me because I already knew. I knew I had talent. I went to the Jewish community theater and got in plays there. Then I went for the movies.

the distinction between talent and genius is definite. Talent combines and uses; genius combines and creates.

I truly believe we all have a sleeping giant within us. Each of us has a talent, a gift, our own bit of genius just waiting to be tapped. It might be a talent for art or music... a special way of relating to the ones you love. It might be a genius for selling or innovating.... I choose to believe that our Creator doesn't play favorites, that we've all been created unique, but with equal opportunities for experiencing life to the fullest.

So much talent comes from the base of poverty and those in the margins. You limit the base, you miss too much talent.

Talent isn't really enough to make it in any world. If you're trying to be a superstar, or at the highest rate of fame, you have to have personality too. You have to be a well-rounded person. It takes way more than talent nowadays.

Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become 'stage-worthy.' We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. This is as true for the infant moving from kicking and crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with his equations. If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach. 'Talent' or 'lack of talent' have little to do with it.

When you start, the world of publishing seems like a great cathedral citadel of talent, resisting attempts to let you inside. It isn't like that at all. It may be more difficult now, and take longer than when I started to write, but there's a great, empty warehouse out there looking for simple talent.

I believe that I have a platform because God blessed me with the talent to play football. Having that talent, my job is to be responsible with it.

I feel that talent means little unless coupled with an insatiable desire to give an excellent personal demonstration of ability...talent must be in company with a capacity for unlimited effort which provides the power that eventually hurdles the difficulties that would frustrate lukewarm enthusiasm.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads. Erica Jong To Cowardly Lion:"As for you my fine friend, you are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate delusion that simply because you run away from danger, you have no courage. You're confusing courage with wisdom.Frank Morgan as the Wizard of Oz "Courage faces fear and thereby masters it."Martin Luther King, Jr. "These days I'm feeling all right'cept I can't tell my courage from my desperation

We are in the presence of a recruiting drive systematically and deliberately undertaken by American business, by American universities, and to a lesser extent, American government, often initiated by talent scouts specially sent over here to buy British brains and preempt them for service of the U.S.A. ... I look forward earnestly to the day when some reform of the American system of school education enables them to produce their own scientists so that, in an aimiable free trade of talent, there may be adequate interchange between our country and theirs, and not a one-way traffic.

Working in the arts, you see people who come from terrible circumstances and who, for whatever reason, have incredible talent. But of course, with that great talent comes some guilt because, if you come from circumstances that don't encourage it, it can be really confusing.

In The Interestings I wanted to write about what happens to talent over time. In some people talent blooms, in others it falls away.

Having talent is like having blue eyes. You don't admire a man for the colour of his eyes. I admire a man for what he does with his talent.

We want our friend as a man of talent, less because he has talent than because he is our friend.

You have to have a talent for having talent.

The years after graduation hardened me into someone quite different from the strutting graduate who left campus that day headed for New York city, ready to offer the world his talent. The world, I discovered. was not all that interested.

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

Talent is extremely important. It's like a sports team, the team that has the best individual player will often win, but then there’s a multiplier from how those players work together and the strategy they employ.

I think when you add a layer of competition, I think that adds something to it as well. It's also fun to see people who have talent given a platform and an opportunity to shine and an opportunity to become recognized for what they do.

Every person is endowed with God-given abilities, and we must cultivate every ounce of talent we have in order to maintain our pinnacle position in the world.

If I have a talent, it's already been exploited! I've shown everything I can do to the public.

Marsh: Our best efforts were never even a mild annoyance to the Lord Ruler." Kelsier: Ah, but being an annoyance is something that I am very good at. In fact, I'm far more than just a 'mild' annoyance--people tell me I can be downright frustrating. Might as well use this talent for the cause of good, eh?

Jackie had a keen eye for talent, and like an elephant never forgot. And, he was always right on the mark.

My only talent is that I have a so-called big engine. I can attack on successive days - well maybe now not so often - or ride tempo at the front of the peloton for a week. I'm not a climber or a sprinter. Whatever makes the race sticky, fast and difficult is good for me. I'm just a big motor - I think I'm allowed to say that - and a fighter. I'll do whatever it takes to make the race.