Wendy Wasserstein Quotes

Talent is hereditary; it may be the common possession of a whole family (eg, the Bach family); genius is not transmitted; it is never diffused, but is strictly individual.

Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.

What is genius? It is the power to be a boy again at will.

Genius. It's a word. What does it really mean? If I win I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not.

'Genius' which means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all.

I know of no such thing as genius, genius is nothing but labor and diligence.

Genius is the father of a heavenly line, but the mortal mother, that is industry.

Geniuses are just people who had good mothers.

Great eloquence we cannot get, except from human genius.

There has never been any great genius without a spice of madness.

When a man has displayed talent in some particular path, and left all competitors behind him in it, the world are too apt to give him credit for universality of genius, and to anticipate for him success in all that he undertakes.

Men of the greatest genius are not always the most prodigal of their encomiums. But then it is when their range of power is confined, and they have in fact little perception, except of their own particular kind of excellence.

There is no more light in a genius than in any other honest man - but he has a particular kind of lens to concentrate this light into a burning point.

Genius appeals to the future.

Messi always makes the right decision, whether it's a pass or a finish. He's a little genius.

Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.

Talent is full of thoughts, Genius is thought. Talent is a cistern, Genius a fountain.

Genius is its own end.

Truth is the nursing mother of genius. No man can be absolutely true to himself, eschewing cant, compromise, servile imitation, and complaisance without becoming original.

Talent wears well, genius wears itself out; talent drives a snug brougham in fact; genius, a sun-chariot in fancy.

You are the single most amazing person, faery, woman in this world or the other. Because of you, I am a part of this strange new world, have a second mother, and . . . eternity. I have almost everything I could want.

The word genius was whispered into my ear, the first thing I ever heard, while I was still mewling in my crib. So it never occurred to me that I wasn't until middle age.

Genius is only a superior power of seeing.

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.

We knew the time would come that we'd have to step down because we'd been winning Oscars for 15 years. I discovered this one day when I got home, my mother was reading a newspaper and she said, 'Again? What are you doing in the papers?' And I realized if my mother thought that of me, what would my enemies think?