You can't teach talent, but you can teach people how to read strenuously and mimic the moves of rock-star writers so that they eventually accumulate a toolbox of skills.
People with talent are not interested in showing off behind another person. They're more interested in the music. [Charlie Parker] was playing with me. That's the difference between the kind of musician I like to work with and singing with a musician who thinks he has to accompany me. That is so annoying I cannot tell you.
Talent doesn't appear over night. It takes a lot of work and honing your craft, but also don't give up because people may say you're not good enough. I had so many teachers in high school and college saying "You're not going to make it. You're not. You can't. " Luckily I had enough people around me who said I could.
Wisdom is the talent of buying virtuous pleasures at the cheapest rate.
I have a responsibility to nurture and shepherd my talent and when I'm living the parts of my life not related to that I feel I have the right to be left alone.
If I'd had covered [ Brett Favre] in Atlanta, I'd presume he'd go down as another Todd Marinovich. Talent out the gills, but lacking the control and discipline to make much of himself.
There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.
Executives are afraid of losing control if subordinates try to roam too far. Conversely, hierarchy squelches talent by forcing rote standardization through the punishment of failure, a necessary accompaniment to experimentation.
The music business has let me touch a lot of people with my talent.
Don't forget: one of the saddest things in life is wasted talent.
The persecution of genius fosters its influence.
I have my own set of survival techniques. I am patient. I know how to pack light. But my one might travel talent is that I can make friends with anybody. I can make friends with the dead. If there isn’t anyone else around to talk to, I could probably make friends with a four-foot-tall pile of sheetrock. That is why I’m not afraid to travel to the most remote places in the world, not if there are human beings there to meet. People asked me before I left, “do you have friends [there]?’ and I would just shake my head no, thinking to myself, But I will.
But those with an evil heart seem to have a talent for destroying anything beautiful which is about to bloom.
The repetition of small efforts will accomplish more than the occasional use of great talents.
The ability to portray people in still life and in motion requires the highest measure of intuition and talent.
It is certain that at certain times talent entirely overcomes thought or poetry.
Friday was added to my nickname because I have a talent of getting on with most people. So it's a bit of a man Friday thing.
Hard work is greater than lazy talent.
Our greatness, our talent has never been the question. It's been a matter of grappling for control over what we do.
I still don't know if I'm good enough or if it's a calling or a vocation or something, but the talent part is out. My desire to do it is undoubted. I just love doing this.
