700 Performance Quotes

I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don't remember ever having seen one weep.

I don't think that we necessarily lie. I mean, we make our living by pretending that we're someone else. I don't tell tall tales. I always tell the truth.

Mistakes are part of the game. It's how well you recover from them, that's the mark of a great player.

Acting is not pretending or lying. It's finding a side of yourself that's the character and ignoring your other sides. And there's a side of me that wonders what's wrong with being completely honest.

My first big acting performance was in the Marilyn Monroe biography piece, and it required frontal nudity. I talked to Mira Sorvino, my co-star, about how nervous I was because I didn't know how my mom would react. She said, 'Can I be completely honest with you? I've seen your mom in interviews, and she seems pretty screwed up. I don't think there's much you could do to shock a broad like that.' And from that moment on it was big nipples to the wind!

As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy.

A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.

Wave after wave of love flooded the stage and washed over me, the beginning of the one great durable romance of my life.

The funny thing about our act is that dad gets the worst of it, although I'm the one who apparently receives the bruises . . . the secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It's a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I'd have been killed if I hadn't been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don't last long, because they can't stand the treatment.

I liked myself better when I wasn't me.

Actresses can get outrageously precious about the way they look. That's not what life's about. If you starve yourself to the point where your brain cells shrivel, you will never do good work. And if you're overly conscious of your arms flapping in the wind, how can you look the other actor in the eye to respond to them?

I've always believed that acting is instinct to start with; you either have it or you don't.

Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere.

Actresses are such very dull people off the stage. We are only delightful and brilliant when we are doing what we are told to do. Off stage we are awful chumps.

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.

Man, I was tame compared to what they do now. Are you kidding? I didn't do anything but just jiggle.

He played the King as though under momentary apprehension that someone else was about to play the ace.

His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for wedding presents and when he encountered anyone as punctilious as himself the correspondence ended only with death.

When you're hot, you're hot; when you're not, you're not.

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

San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When they boo you, you know they mean you. Music, that's what it is to me. One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo.

[Malipiero's advice to Casanova.] If you wish your audience to cry, you must shed tears yourself, but if you wish to make them laugh you must contrive to look as serious as a judge.

[I would like to be] one of [the first pop singers to perform in a free Cuba]. I know the list is huge. And it would be hard to pull off -- I'd have a lump as big as a tostone [fried green plantain] in my throat. But oh my God, what a dream -- it would be the height of my personal and professional career.

Jim Morrison was a well-built boy, larger than average, and young enough to maintain the engorged silent connection right through the residue of chemicals.

But it must not be thought that I say this out of personal experience: for in the many years that I have been before the public my secret methods have been steadily shielded by the strict integrity of my assistants, most of whom have been with me for years.

But then, so far as I know, I am the only performer who ever pledged his assistants to secrecy, honor and allegiance under a notarial oath.

Eating coals of fire has always been one of the sensational feats of the Fire Kings, as it is quite generally known that charcoal burns with an extremely intense heat.

Flames from the lips may be produced by holding in the mouth a sponge saturated with the purest gasoline.

In all feats of fire-eating it should be noted that the head is thrown well back, so that the flame may pass out of the open mouth instead of up into the roof, as it would if the head were held naturally.

My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business.

No performer should attempt to bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth.

The eating of burning brimstone is an entirely fake performance.

Dicko: It was good to see you step outside the AC role that you entered the competition as. Um, I would take those movement coaching sessions a little more seriously. Simply put, um, performing a song is about communicating emotions and whether we like it or not 80% of communication is non-verbal. You communicate with your body, you communicate in emotion, sensuality and a sense of power and that's something that Anastacia does pretty well. I think it's something that you really need to work on because actually seeing that piece before you performed highlighted the fact that that's a bit of a failing of yours. I think your voice is great. It's really holding up well and actually preferred it to the version of Anastacia or Miriam as I sometimes call him. Her.

Mark: Um. I don't know Hayley. I don't know. Because I admire the fact that you keep challenging yourself. You know, last week was an enormous challenge for you and you keep doing that and I don't want to discourage that because it's a fantastic thing about you. But honestly, I just really don't think that you totally connected with that at the level that Anastacia actually bought the meaning of that song and what it meant to her. I didn't feel it from you. It didn't connect for me like some of the others that you've done have.

Mark: I know that was a concern for you that, wasn't it? You were really nervous about this particular performance. Why? I really, really admire you for that Hayley. I admire the fact that you are actually quite green. I mean in the studio you were green and this is a whole new experience for you but the way that you approach it, the openess of mind is really, really admirable and I think the simplicity, how you handled that was really terrific. Good on you Hayley.

Marcia: One of the hardest things to do as a singer is to stand still and deliver a song and you did it. And you did it very well and I congratulate you.

Dicko: I thought you sung a dismal song really well. You said it was a challenge for you. It was a challenge for me to listen to it cause I just couldn't follow it. I wanted to party tonight. I thought there were some great songs and that was just a bit of a speed bump in the evening for me and it's a shame cause I think you are growing. I wanted you to tear it up tonight and I think the song weighed you down but I thought you delivered it well.

Dicko: Oh my God, you can dance can't you. Hey look, fantastic song for you. You look wonderful. If you can't do bling on a disco night when can you? That was just a real eye opener for me. That was just a real, real joyous experience for me. What we've noticed, and certainly at the finals stage is there is the performance that defines someone and shows their true star potential. For me that was yours. That was terrific.

Mark: Hayley I know that during this last week there's been a little, um, sort of non-verbal tension between us and it's never really been about you as a person. It's definitely not because you as a person, there's so much to admire. There really is. Your heart and your will is just enormous and there are so many people who have had hits without having classically great recording voices and they've done it on the strength of their spirit and the strength of their heart and you've got all of that and heaps.

Dicko: Hayley, hair looks great by the way. Curls are good for you. I've got to say, look, I don't think you're a natural at this. You have to work really hard at everything you do and it's pleasing to see the way you're moving in the right direction. I think that was a really tough song to chose. Some of those timings in there, it was a bit like a maths exam at times for me trying to keep up. But I think it's a really good style for you. That type of song. That type of artist, George as well. The only problem I have with you, I've had it for the past few weeks, is I can see you concentrating and I can hear you thinking about what you're trying to do as you're doing it and I don't know. Sometimes I just think if you could switch all of that off and just let yourself go a bit I think you'd be a lot better for it. But that was very good.

Mark: Yeah, I'm sorry to say, I'm agreeing with Dicko again. There's a mentor of mine who used to say to me, you've got to have a body of fire, mind of ice so that you're mind is going through all of those strange timings and knowing where it's got to go but outwardly you just seem to be going and being released, being free. We see too much of the work with you on that song. We're seeing too much of it. We're seeing too much of the worry and the thinking and not enough of the release. You saw too much of it to me but you know, once again your risk taking is fantastic. I really admire you for that.

Dicko: There was something missing from that performance. It was the tick tick tick of your mind working. That was the first time we saw you sing without thinking about what you're doing. Now the trick is to follow along on that road. Simple melody sung beautifully - well done.

Dicko: Great pitch and great vocally but you have problems with movement. There was also a breakdown point where you could have gained everyone but you didn't. Vocally very strong.

Mark: That was the best you could do.

Marcia: You look great, you're beautiful and this song suits you. You were being yourself and you did great.

Mark: I felt that you were singing it to your husband, but I'd suggest that you should block everyone else out and REALLY sing it to your man.

Marcia: I appreciated the simplicity and when you just stand there and people hear your voice it's beautiful.

Dicko: You looked beautiful and I enjoyed that. I didn't think that you over thought that at all.

Mark: I would say that you are the nuclear power puff girl, you are indestructible. You've asked for positive assistance in guidance and what I'd say is when you're phrasing things you don't need to end each line the same way, it's about what you don't do rather than what you do do... And you do look beautiful.

Carley: I was wondering if there are any pre performance habits that you have before you go on stage.

Playing shows every night....DUHHHH!

'I fill balloons up with deadly poison gas and then float them out over the audience.' (from 'Egyptian Magician')

'It's time to drop the 'Sable Bomb' on ya!'

I'm all about pleasing the fans.

I've overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it.

They all want the Rock to raise the People's Eyebrow, they all want the Rock to drop the People's Elbow, layeth the smacketh down with the Rock Bottom, and they want to hear without a shadow of a doubt the most electrifying line in sports entertainment, period. And here it is... 'To BE the man, WHOOO, you've got to beat the man...' No, that's not it. That's not it, jabroni. This is it: 'OOOOhhhhh YEEEAAAahh DIG...' Ah, Dammit, that's not it either. This is it... 'Whatcha gonna do, when the TWENTY-FOUR INCH...' That's not it either. Here we go 'I am the best there is, the best there was....' No, no that's not it. That's damn sure as hell not it.(pause) This is it, The Most Electrifying line in Sports Entertainment, if ya SMELLLLLLLLALALALALALAOW what The Rock is cooking...

THE ROCK: All the Rock's fans are chanting his name... CROWD: 'Rock-y! Rock-y! Rock-y!... MANKIND (slightly out of sync with the crowd): 'Rock-y! Rock-y!...'

We sound like the Bay City Rollers after an assault by Black Sabbath. And, we vomit onstage better than anyone. (1992)

OK, you trained monkeys, everybody jump up and down. Let's bring back the good old pogo! (12/31/93 at Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, California)

He had a touch most guitarists would kill for.

I only met Kurt once...I was touched by him. He seemed a little shell shocked as though he felt yet another show might drop at any time.

The guy should never ever play football again

They all want the Rock to raise the People's Eyebrow, they all want the Rock to drop the People's Elbow, layeth the smacketh down with the Rock Bottom, and they want to hear without a shadow of a doubt the most electrifying line in sports entertainment, period. And here it is... 'To BE the man, WHOOO, you've got to beat the man...' No, that's not it. That's not it, jabroni. This is it: 'OOOOhhhhh YEEEAAAahh DIG...' Ah, Dammit, that's not it either. This is it... 'Whatcha gonna do, when the TWENTY-FOUR INCH...' That's not it either. Here we go 'I am the best there is, the best there was....' No, no that's not it. That's damn sure as hell not it.(pause) This is it, The Most Electrifying line in Sports Entertainment, if ya SMELLLLLLLLALALALALALAOW what The Rock is cooking...

And every breath I breathe until the moment I'm deceased/Will be another moment ballin' as a 'G'/I rip the crowd, then I start again/Internally I live in sin/until the moment that they let me breathe again/The heartz of men

Every time I fire a linguist, the performance of our speech recognition system goes up.

...all the songs are solid compositions and are performed with sincerity, grace, and an abundance of technique.

The theatre was full - crammed to its roof: royal and noble were there; palace and hotel had emptied their inmates into those tiers so thronged and so hushed. Deeply did I feel myself privileged in having a place before that stage; I longed to see a being of whose powers I had heard reports which made me conceive peculiar anticipations. I wondered if she would justify her renown: with strange curiosity, with feelings severe and austere, yet of riveted interest, I waited. She was a study of such nature as had not encountered my eyes yet: a great and new planet she was: but in what shape? I waited her rising. She rose at nine that December night: above the horizon I saw her come. She could shine yet with pale grandeur and steady might; but that star verged already on its judgment-day. Seen near, it was a chaos - hollow, half-consumed: an orb perished or perishing - half lava, half glow. I had heard this woman termed 'plain,' and I expected bony harshness and grimness - something large, angular, sallow. What I saw was the shadow of a royal Vashti: a queen, fair as the day once, turned pale now like twilight, and wasted like wax in flame. For awhile - a long while - I thought it was only a woman, though an unique woman, who moved in might and grace before this multitude. By-and-by I recognized my mistake. Behold! I found upon her something neither of woman nor of man: in each of her eyes sat a devil. These evil forces bore her through the tragedy, kept up her feeble strength - for she was but a frail creature; and as the action rose and the stir deepened, how wildly they shook her with their passions of the pit! They wrote HELL on her straight, haughty brow. They tuned her voice to the note of torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac mask. Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate she stood. It was a marvellous sight: a mighty revelation. It was a spectacle low, horrible, immoral. Swordsmen thrust through, and dying in their blood on the arena sand; bulls goring horses disembowelled, made a meeker vision for the public - a milder condiment for a people's palate - than Vashti torn by seven devils: devils which cried sore and rent the tenement they haunted, but still refused to be exorcised. Suffering had struck that stage empress; and she stood before her audience neither yielding to, nor enduring, nor in finite measure, resenting it: she stood locked in struggle, rigid in resistance. She stood, not dressed, but draped in pale antique folds, long and regular like sculpture. A background and entourage and flooring of deepest crimson threw her out, white like alabaster - like silver: rather, be it said, like Death.

'I'm being trained to shake the bon-bon appropriately..' -''Access Hollywood interview about his JukeBox Tour

'And Clay, I want to say something to you. I think you are one of the few people I've met throughout this competition who can take criticism like a grown up. Learn, You definitely got better, You've lost some of this facial thing which I think was distracting, and You just did a really grown up, fantastic performance. Congratulation.' - Simon Cowell on 'Solitaire' -

'Clay I think, without a doubt, this performance, that song, is the best performance of the entire competition that I've ever known. Unbelievable, unbelievable. - Paula Abdul on 'Unchained Melody' -

Dude : [without moving his teeth] Hey man, I'm not in your team

I've actually been meaning to point something out for a while now but it keeps slipping my mind. Just in case someone has misled you to believe otherwise, crowd surfing sucks. I would leave it plain and simple like that but, for fear of someone confusing the statement to be only a commentary against aggressive behavior at shows, I shall further clarify. Not to be confused with crowd crawling to sing along, the dying art of stylistic stage diving or the evermore rare head walking, crowd surfing is a passive, non emotive, 'Hey mom look at me and how wild I think I am.' behavior. While kick boxing, slamming, singing along and the like are all visceral and emotional responses to music, crowd surfing is, simply, weak. Always has been. There is really no better way to cheapen a live performance than to float like a happy little cloud atop the hands of discomforted showgoers. For all those aghast, having been misinformed and tricked into thinking it was cool, or far out, or what ever you crazy kids might call it today, FEAR NOT for you are not too far gone! We at the church of HolylChristCrowdSurfingSucks welcome you with loving arms. Now you know...and you know what GI Joe says about knowing. That is my public service announcement for today.

'We can even hazard a little analysis as to what made his voice so appealing. 'That curious baritone,' one critic called it. Actually, that is inexact. The voice had mixed propensities, hovering between tenor and bass and everything in between. Even a convincing falsetto lay within his range. One thing he was not, ever, was 'Steve-'n-Edie', the polished, professionally accomplished Vegas artistes who once pronounced on an afternoon interview show (Mr. Lawrence enunciating the sentiment for himself and his partner/wife, Ms. Gorme), 'We don't really think of Elvis as a singer. But he was a star.' It is only when, years later, one gets past the indignation of hearing such apparent ignorance, that the sense of the observation becomes clear. A singer is someone like Steve Lawrence rolling effortlessly (and meaninglessly) through a shlock-standard like 'What Now, My Love?'. More or less like doing the scales. A star is the persona in whom one invests one's vicarious longings, a being who is constantly hazarding - and intermittently succeeding at - the impossible stretches that every soul wishes to attempt but lacks the means or the will to. It's not a matter of virtuosity.'

'Certainly the most famous performer to be attached to a tongues-speaking fellowship was Elvis Presley; shortly after the Presleys arrived in Memphis, from Tupelo, a First Assembly of God bus swung through their rundown neighborhood, so they climbed aboard and became regulars of Pastor James Hamill's congregation; Hamill remembers Elvis attended Sunday school and was exposed there to the best in Pentecostal music; in 1957, after he achieved international acclaim, Presley said 'We used to go to these religious sing-ins all the time, and there were these perfectly fine singers nobody responded to, but there were also these other singers who cut up all over the place, jumping on the piano, moving every which way, and all of which the audience liked, so I guess I learned from them'; uninhibited Pentecostalism gave young Elvis ideas about music and performance and, from then on, he was sometimes called the 'Evangelist' by his inner circle of friends'

'In the mid-60s, when Elvis was making those godawful movies and my friends and I were buying albums by the Stones and the Yardbirds, a mate and I would always go to see Elvis on the big screen; we knew the formula and always used to laugh about them afterwards, but what I also remember is what used to happen in the cinema: not long after the opening credits the audience would start talking and laughing through the dialogue - but the second Elvis sang everyone would stop and listen; Elvis' voice had that effect, even when he was considered as a joke by a generation grown up on tougher music and rock musicians who seemed much more rebellious, dangerous and innovative; so, for me, it has always been about the music and even when he was all but lost to us, in those final years, you can still hear that raw passion flare up; and I defy anyone, knowing that he had just separated from his wife and was heartbroken, to listen to 'Always on my Mind' and 'Fool', and not be moved; you can hear a man whose heart is breaking; listening to the best of his music, whether it be raw rock'n'roll or those genuinely heart aching ballads, confirms for me that Elvis has never left the building'

'Elvis manages to pull off exponential, seismic shifts in energy, unleashing hoards of it through his voice whilst, within the space of a second, racing up the highest, most absolute vocal intensity; it's almost voyeuristic to see a single performer put so much energy; you look around to see if it's really possible; the voice just becomes a big tank panzering through the screen, punching in chorus after driving chorus and it is insanely, inexplicably thrilling seismic TV, bigger than the moon landing, a one-man volcano of energy; he makes it seem so damn effortless and, despite all the waiting and expected attention during the solo numbers, he always puts in an on-performance, the three unflagging takes of 'If I can Dream' all intense, committed; and he does this through vocal performance alone, not moves; this is probably one of the few times where the vocals mattered most to him, and it shows; after days of intense singing, he hardly even loses his voice; I challenge any current pop singer to match this three-day heavy intensity, this sheer rock and roll energy'

'From the first quavering notes of the song, it was obvious that there was something different about him -- you could detect his influences, but he didn't sound like anyone else. There is a quality of unutterable plaintiveness as Elvis, in 1953, sings 'My Happiness', a pop hit,in 1948, for Jon and Sandra Steele, and a sentimental ballad that couldn't have been further from anyone's imaginings of rock-and-roll. It is just a pure, yearning, almost desperately pleading solo voice reaching for effect. The guitar, Elvis said, 'sounded like somebody beating on a bucket lid,' with an added factor of nervousness that Elvis must surely have felt. But even that is not particularly detectable -- there is a strange sense of calm, an almost unsettling stillness in the midst of great drama. When he finished, the boy looked up expectantly at the man in the control booth. Mr. Phillips nodded and said politely that he was an 'interesting' singer. 'We might give you a call sometime.'

'Lesson #1 is that rock music is in the fighting spirit, not in the amperage of the guitars; indeed, some of the toughest rocking has come from all, or mostly acoustic bands; Elvis presented a primer lesson from the famous Sun sessions, with a simple blues song through the most famous faux false start in rock history; he and the boys start out all slow and bluesy, before stopping the band cold and calling it out like the hippest beat poet: 'Hold it fellas. That don't... move me. Let's get real, real gone for a change'. Then they did, let it loose, turned every bit of intensity in their beings into a jumping arrangement, much faster and more rhythmically nuanced a performance than the opening. Much of the intensity is in the fast and furious, but precisely laid out detail work; there is a strong sense of spontaneity and discovery, but what ultimately makes this a hall-of-fame performance is the vocal performance; Elvis doing tricks, making sudden octave wide jumps. 'If you see my milkcow...' There is a charismatic determination of spirit that Nietzsche would no doubt have recognized as the will to power; when the King got through with it, it was no longer anything to do with a high calcium drink, but about the singer's assertion of his place in the universe'

'Take a track like 'One Sided Love Affair' (1956), and really examine every nuance of his voice, every caress, every tease and every growl that he lets loose for the song's duration, and you`ll you come to understand that the reason Presley's voice has been so often imitated is because it was unique and, furthermore, fuckin' great; no phony piano intro, not even a puerile lyric could have ever stopped him from turning this song into a real classic; imagine, then, how great it is when Elvis gets to sing material that is up to his standards - like on the Sun Records label song 'Tryin' To Get You' (1955) - , probably the bluesiest song on this record, where Presley shows a sense of determination, not just a combination of nobleness and sex, but an expression of guts as well; quite simply, this is a guy who knows what he wants, and knows he's gonna get it, and his confidence - never arrogance -, is so contagious that by the end of the song, you believe it too'

As a dancer he stands alone, and no singer knows his way around a song like Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire once worked so hard/ he often lost his breath/ and now he taps all other chaps to death

You're the nimble tread/Of the feet of Fred Astaire

The main point of Flying Down to Rio is the screen promise of Fred Astaire.... He's assuredly a bet after this one, for he's distinctly likeable on the screen, the mike is kind to his voice and as a dancer he remains in a class by himself. The latter observation will be no news to the professsion, which has long admitted that Astaire starts dancing where the others stop hoofing

Of all the actors and actresses I've ever worked with, the hardest worker is Fred Astaire. He behaved like he was a young man whose whole destiny depended on being successful in his first film. He rehearses between takes, after takes - there's no limit to his professionalism

Fred taught me a step because I said I can't let this experience be over without my learning something. He taught me the most wonderful Fred Astaire-like step, with an umbrella. It was a complete throwaway; it was almost invisible. It was in the way he walked. As he moved along, he bounced the umbrella on the floor to the beat and then he grabbed it. It was effortless and invisible. As a matter of fact, a few years later I was photographing Gene Kelly and told him that Fred Astaire had taught me this trick with an umbrella. And Kelly said, 'Oh I'll teach you one,' and he did, and the two tricks with the umbrella in some way define the difference between Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and, in my view, demonstrate who is the greater of the two artists. With Gene Kelly, he threw the umbrella way up into the air, and then he moved to catch it, very slowly, grabbing it behind his back. It was a big, grandstand play, about nothing.

Liza, in terms of sheer talent, just oozes with it. She has sheer energy and stamina, which she gets across the stage, and the way she delivers herself to the public is a good influence. There is a lot to learn from her

'This next song is only dedicated to the beautiful people here tonight. That means all of you. Thank you for coming along and making this a great occasion.' -Live Aid, 1985

'I need my fucking water, I don't care!' -Live At Wembley Stadium, 1986

' OK, are you ready to rock? Are you ready to roll with us! OK, let's do it!' - 'Live Killers' album, 1979

'Good evening all you rock'n'rollers!' -Earls Court, 1977

'I really do feel like being evil tonight.' -Earl's Court, 1977

'Hello again, my beauties!...Is it happening? Is everybody okay? Wanna fool around?' -Live at Wembley Stadium, 1986