Forced Talent Quotes

It was not a secret, then or now, that there is something vaguely un-American about forcing your child to be really good at classical music performance.

When I was a kid, my dad kind of forced me to sing the third harmony for our little family group, and I just kind of hated it. I just felt so uncomfortable on stage, too shy.

I used to raise the devil when my father made me practice the flute and my mother made me take piano lessons.

I wasn't one of those hideous children who make their parents sit through hour-long performances when you're seven. I didn't do anything like that thankfully.

It was always acting, singing and dancing that I loved. Not the horror of performing on the piano in front of an assembled audience of quiet people. I'd forget the piece just before I went out to do the concerto, the panic was too great . This was not anything that gave me pleasure. This was fulfilling somebody else's dream.

Mum decided that I could sing a bit, so she put me in a choir, which I hated, and it was just a nightmare. I was a rebellious sort of choirboy.

You can't just expect anyone to turn comedian because it's something that should come naturally, but not when forced on someone.

When I was young, I was being pushed, against my will, towards becoming a classical musician. I had music scholarships; I had to play the violin and do orchestra practice and that sort of stuff. That meant I didn't get to do any school plays. I desperately wanted to do that.

I never witness a performance of child-acrobats, or the exhibition of any forced talent, physical or mental, on the part of children, without protesting, at least in my own mind, against the blindness and cruelty of their parents or guardians or whoever has care of them.