Pastoral Resources

The romantic idea is that everybody around a writer must suffer for his talent. I think a writer is a citizen of humanity, part of his nation, part of his family. He may have to make some compromises.

The ability to get ahead in an organization is simply another talent, like the ability to play chess, paint pictures, do coronary bypass operations or pick pockets.

Talent is a gift that can be given, and it can be taken away. We have to appreciate that.

You may not have any extra talent, but maybe you are just paying more attention to what you are doing.

You have to be there not for the fame and glory and recognition and being a page in a history book, but you have to be there because you believe your talent and ability can be applied effectively to operation of the spacecraft.

Again, talent is the real import of being in the business.

If you've got talent, stick with it... because talent wins out, without a doubt.

Tact is one of the first mental virtues, the absence of it is fatal to the best talent.

I don't consider myself to be a major talent, so the only solace I can take is to hope I'm growing.

Most of the dogmatic religions have exhibited a perverse talent for taking the wrong side on the most important concepts in the material universe, from the structure of the solar system to the origin of man.

People often remark that I'm pretty lucky. Luck is only important in so far as getting the chance to sell yourself at the right moment. After that, you've got to have talent and know how to use it.

Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.

A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent.

Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.

Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing.

I firmly believe that we have more latent musical talent in America than there is in any other country. But to dig it out there must be good music throughout the land, a lot of it. Everyone must hear it, and such a process takes time.

Every act I see, their whole act is choreographed. I'm sick of seeing these dancers. The only reason they have them is they don't have enough talent to get people dancing themselves.

The failure of women to produce genius of the first rank in most of the supreme forms of human effort has been used to block the way of all women of talent and ambition for intellectual achievement.

When I have sat at home with this God-given talent for music for a long time, somebody approaches me out of the blue and asks me to play for them. It's almost as though there's a force somewhere which is saying 'no sittin' around, out you go!