If you go to a second-rate place, and you are first-rate, it is very difficult to do first-rate work because you do not get that critical feedback you need for first-rate work on a daily basis.
First-rate science fiction was, and remains, more interesting than second-rate art.
It's better to read first rate science fiction than second rate science-it's a lot more fun, and no more likely to be wrong.
It's often better to read first-rate science fiction than second-rate science - it's far more stimulating, and perhaps no more likely to be wrong.
I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.
I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate.
The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.
I knew Id always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, Well, Id rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one.
There is more credit and satisfaction in being a first-rate truck driver than a tenth-rate executive.
Why become a second-rate Ravel when you're already a first-rate Gershwin?
But no work from a first rate mind is ever really second rate.
You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.
Shining outward qualities, although they may excite first-rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second-rate abilities.
First rate mathematicians choose first rate people, but second rate mathematicians choose third rate people.
I am reading Sienkiewicz. What tormenting reading. What a powerful genius! And there never was such a first-rate writer of the second-rate class.
When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'