66 Quotes About Performing

As a manager in high altitude astronomy, I found poor performing employees to be a feature of remote observatories.

The perfection is not so much in the performance as in the journey towards it. This is the joy. You must burn!

When you play, never mind who listens to you.

Play always as if in the presence of a master.

Endeavour to play easy pieces well and with elegance; that is better than to play difficult pieces badly.

Performers should realize they not only have to prepare themselves for concert purposes as far as memorizing their programs goes, but for the business of just walking out before the people …. It is important to play before an imaginary audience too. Before I play in public I very often play a program three or four times as though I were seated before a actual audience.

I didn't know it, but what I was really looking for was compassion. Not consciously of course. I didn't consciously want to become compassionate. Who in his right mind would give up his place at the center of the universe? Compassion is scary. If you open up too much to people, they have power over you and make you i things for them. Better to keep them at a distance ...

In the early days, I might have gotten on stage and begun to sing as a desperate attempt to communicate, but now I found that singing was both a physical and emotional joy. It was sensuous, a pure pleasure, which didn't take away from the emotions being expressed—even if they were melancholic. Music can do that; you can enjoy singing about something sad.

It only becomes art if it touches other people.