Acknowledging Talent Quotes

I believe in being honest with myself. If there's one thing I hate it's when a comedian is great and won't admit it. I've never met one like that, but if I did, I'd hate them.

You can't take credit for talent; you can only take credit for using it.

The Kennedy Center Honors reflects our humanity and higher purpose. We are a great nation, in part, because we value culture.

No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.

That's how I am as a director - if somebody does a really good take, I can't help it, I'm not even aware of it. Actors really, really need positive reinforcement.

You couldn't be that good and not know it, somewhere in your secret heart, however much you'd been abused into affecting public humility.

It gives me no joy to be praised at the expense of a better artist, by someone who does not know the difference or who thinks me too vain to be aware of it myself.

Next to possessing genius one's self is the power of appreciating it in others.

I have to admit that Christina is good—though I don’t like giving credit to Candor smart-mouths—and so is Peter—though I don’t like giving credit to future psychopaths.

I want to encourage the non-star, low-profile film, and maybe we've got a chance.

I think after doing Push and Shove and having it not be successful, I lost a lot of confidence. Songwriting, for me, has always been traumatic, and I've always made all these excuses. But I've realized that you have to just accept that it was a gift: "I don't know where it came from, I don't know how I did it, but I did write all those songs, and I gotta do it again."

Sensitive husbands don't like second billing. I don't believe Franchot ever for a moment resented the fact that I was a star. Possibly he resented Hollywood's refusal to let him forget it. There was never a doubt in my mind that his talent was greater than mine.

I pride myself in recognizing and upholding ability in every party and wherever I meet it.

I've expressed my gratitude to my son many times. And his career is far from undistinguished, and it was a great privilege to have someone of this skill bringing this album to conclusion.

Rare is he who will concede genius.

No good writer was ever long neglected; no great man overlooked by men equally great. Impatience is a proof of inferior strength, and a destroyer of what little there may be.