A Quote by Eric Butterworth

The great piano virtuoso Paderewski was once playing before an audience of the rich and the royal. After a brilliant performance, an elegant lady waxed ecstatic over the great artist. She said, "Ah Maestro, you are a genius!" Paderewski tartly replied, "Ah yes, madam, but before I was a genius I was a clod!" What he was saying was that his present acclaim was not handed to him on a silver platter. He, too, was once a little boy laboriously practicing his scales. And even at his peak, behind every brilliant performance there were countless hours of practice and preparation.

Eric Butterworth

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Acclaim After Artist Audience Before Behind Boy Brilliant Countless Ecstatic Elegant Even Every Genius Great Great Art Great Artist Handed Him His Hours Lady Little Madam Maestro Once Over Peak Performance Piano Platter Playing Practice Practicing Preparation Present Rich Royal Said Saying Scales She Silver Silver Platter Too Virtuoso Were Yes

Quote Author

Eric Butterworth
Canadian - Educator
September 12, 1916 - April 17, 2003

Behind every brilliant performance there were countless hours of practice and preparation.

Eric Butterworth

In addition, help your children learn self-discipline by such activities as learning to play a musical instrument or other demanding skill. I am reminded of the story of the salesman who came to a house one hot summer day. Through the screen door he could see a young boy practicing his scales on the piano. His baseball glove and hat were by the side of the piano bench. He said, "Say, boy, is your mother home?" To which the boy replied, "What do you think?" Thank heavens for conscientious parents!

Joe J. Christensen

When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were - large, brilliant, and black.

Charlotte Bronte

You can perfect genius because genius is not perfection. On his level and his practice and his methodology, it's almost inhuman. So, that's been a fantastic arc to play, and boy does it go somewhere in this series.

Benedict Cumberbatch

Ronald Reagan knew audiences. It was a key element of his political genius. One of the things at which brilliant politicians are better than mediocre ones is smelling new public concerns over the horizon before they are picked up by polls - before the public even knows to call them 'issues' at all.

Rick Perlstein

Before he died, Harry said that his wife knew everything about every trick that he did, and that she knew how they all worked. It was interesting to play with that idea, and to find the places where she really was afraid for his safety and where she was playing along. I had to find that line between what's a performance and what's real, and that's so much of what magic is, as well. It was really, really fun. They were really partners, in every sense of the word.

Kristen Connolly

It wasn't just that Lucy wanted to help him. She wasn't as selfless as that. She was madly attracted to him. She was attracted to all of the normal things and the weird things, too, like the back of his neck and his thumbs on the edge of his desk and the way his hair stuck out on one side like a little wing over his ear. She caught his smell once, and it made her dizzy. She couldn't fall asleep that night.

Ann Brashares

I love 'Jaws,' and I think Robert Shaw's performance in 'Jaws' is one of the best screen performances of all time. I am a massive Robert Shaw fan. I think he's a brilliant, brilliant talent and we lost him way before his time.

Matt Bomer

CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another. When Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was observed to be deeply moved. "What!" said one of his disciples, "you weep at the death of an enemy?" "Ah, 'tis true," replied the great Stoic; "but you should see me smile at the death of a friend.".

Ambrose Bierce

But this is touching, Severus,” said Dumbledore seriously. “Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?” “For him?” shouted Snape. “Expecto Patronum!” From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe. She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. “After all this time?” “Always,” said Snape.

J. K. Rowling

I was impressed by Hendrix. Not so much by his playing, as his attitude - he wasn't a great player, but everything else about him was brilliant.

Ritchie Blackmore

The first job I ever did in the theatre, I was supposed to be a genius piano player. I couldn't play the piano, but you just sit there at a piano like you're playing, and suddenly all this amazing music comes out and the audience believes you can do it. It's the same with computers. I love scenes where there are people yanking at monitors, "yes I'll put you through now," and you know they're just doing that. But you can look brilliant at all this technology. I love it.

Michael Sheen

What are your thoughts?' 'My thoughts?' I replied, before I even realized what I was saying. 'My thoughts created my world.' Mac sat up in his seat. He scrunched his curls with his hands, perplexed. 'Who said that?' I told him the truth. 'Oh, just someone I used to know,' I said, stroking the naked skin on my middle finger.

Megan McCafferty

I suppose that Paderewski can play superbly, if not quite at his best, while his thoughts wander to the other end of the world, orpossibly busy themselves with a computation of the receipts as he gazes out across the auditorium. I know a great actor, a master technician, can let his thoughts play truant from the scene.

Minnie Maddern Fiske

I'd once been fascinated by his legend - all the stories I'd heard before I met him. Now I can feel that same sense of fascination returning. I picture his face, so beautiful even after pain and torture and grief, his blue eyes bright and sincere. I'm ashamed to admit that I enjoyed my brief time with him in his prison cell. His voice can make me forget about all the details running through my mind, bringing with it emotions of desire, or fear instead, sometimes even anger, but always triggering something. Something that wasn't there before.

Marie Lu

His epitaph: This tomb hold Diophantus, Ah, what a marvel! And the tomb tells scientifically the measure of his life. God vouchsafed that he should be a boy for the sixth part of his life; when a twelfth was added, his cheeks acquired a beard; He kindled for him the light of marriage after a seventh, and in the fifth year after his marriage He granted him a son. Alas! late-begotten and miserable child, when he had reached the measure of half his father's life, the chill grave took him. After consoling his grief by this science of numbers for four years, he reached the end of his life.

Diophantus

A Quote by Eric Butterworth

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