A Quote by Gian-Carlo Rota

Mathematicians - for what they do - are really poorly rewarded. And it's a very competitive field, almost as bad as being a concert pianist.

Gian-Carlo Rota

Quote Topics

Almost Bad Being Competitive Concert Field Mathematicians Pianist Poorly Really Rewarded Very

Quote Author

Gian-Carlo Rota
American - Mathematician
April 27, 1932 - April 18, 1999

In the sense that people who produce things and work get rewarded, statistically. You don't get rewarded precisely for your effort, but in Russia you got rewarded for being alive, but not very well rewarded.

Esther Dyson

I like Stevie Wonder as my favorite non-pianist pianist. I mean, I shouldn't call him a non-pianist, because he's really a great pianist, but he doesn't feature it that much - he uses his keyboards and his piano technique to support his great songs and so forth, but he can really blow.

Chick Corea

I'd say I'm really, really good for a 16-year-old, which is where I peaked. I'm impressive, but not classically trained, not a concert pianist.

Simon Helberg

That's a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.

Nina Simone

I mean, if you pause over what it means at the age of 76 that Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, the happiest single day of her life was the day she made the first team at field hockey. Field hockey is a team sport. Field hockey is a knockabout - I mean, picture Allenswood, the swamps of north London. It's a messy sport. So she really enjoyed playing this rough-and-tumble sport in the mud of Allenswood, a team sport. And she was very competitive. And she loved being competitive, and she loved to win. And that, I think, was all of the things that Allenswood enabled.

Blanche Wiesen Cook

When I hear the words jazz pianist, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a jazz pianist, even to be a bad jazz pianist, you have to be pretty good.

Robert Glasper

I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.

Alan Hovhaness

When things could've gone really bad, rugby caught my interest and I really stuck with it. The sport brought me, maybe off the streets where we'd be fighting, into putting in a good effort in the rugby field where you're kind of rewarded for that rough behaviour instead of in trouble with the law.

Daniel Cudmore

It's very hard to find a pianist that's willing to play the so-called accompanist role on part of the program and yet be capable of being a great solo pianist that you would want for the big sonatas.

Joshua Bell

For me it was perfect, because it wasn't a very competitive environment, and it was a studio program. They basically send you off, and say, bring us some work, and we'll help you improve it. It really rewarded self-discipline.

Anthony Doerr

If you think of the history, in the days of Brahms and Beethoven and all these guys, almost every concert was a new music concert. To play something old was really an exception.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

When I do operas, I'm not really singing very classically. I have a classical background as far as being a pianist and an oboist, but my voice isn't really classical in the operatic sense. But I certainly have a classical sensibility, so I'm comfortable being in that world.

Jason Graae

I wanted to be a concert pianist at Carnegie Hall; that is what I wanted to do from really early on. I actually was the accompanist for a couple of the musicals I was in growing up.