A Quote by Keith Johnstone
I tell people not to do their best. I don't know when that started. Quite a while ago. Because I . . . when they're doing their best I don't get their best. So I try to persuade them to be average. Because if you're wonderful and you're average, you're still wonderful. If you're a bad improviser and you're average, you're what you are.
Related Quotes
I've always said when I broke in I was an average player. I had an average arm, average speed and definitely an average bat. I am still average in all of those.
I look back on people who are not the average, and those people are not the average because they choose to put it in their mind that they are not the average.
'Is that really the best you can say? An average-looking boy? An awful lot of boys are average-looking, S.Q.!' And poor S.Q., he just kept arguing that 'this boy was especially average-looking.' " ~ Kate Wetherall, The Mysterious Benedict Society
If you actually get down to the nitty-gritty of the average Pakistani, the average Indian, the average whoever, what you really do know emotionally is that they're exactly the same.
Making an average pitch to average people, or having an average gala for average people isn't going to scale anymore. You've got to find the people who care. Those people are worth all of your time.
My intention when I make a film is very clear. I make it for a certain kind of people who have average intelligence - because I am also like that. I have an average sense of humor and an average brain.
Listening to as many guitar solos as possible is the best method for someone in the early stages. But saxophone solos can be helpful. They're interesting because they are all single notes, and therefore can be repeated on the guitar. If you can copy a sax solo you're playing very well, because the average saxophonist can play much better than the average guitarist.
I don't particularly like the word average because when it comes down to it there is no average in people. Everybody has their own streak of uniqueness within them.
The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get published. The average -- or only slightly above average -- detective story does.... Whereas the good novel is not at all the same kind of book as the bad novel. It is about entirely different things. But the good detective story and the bad detective story are about exactly the same things, and they are about them in very much the same way.
The difference between the best worker on computer hardware and the average may be 2 to 1, if you're lucky. With automobiles, maybe 2 to 1. But in software, it's at least 25 to 1. The difference between the average programmer and a great one is at least that. The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world. And when you're in a field where the dynamic range is 25 to 1, boy, does it pay off.
You have to be prepared for people to hate you. Average people love to be average, because nobody bothers them.
The major difference between the 'best' and the 'average' is that the 'best' get as much pleasure from practice as performance.
You ain't average! But you know what? You're playing small because it's easier to be average.
Commonplaceness, the surrender to the average, that good which is not bad but still the enemy of the best - That is our besetting danger.
For the first time ever, overweight people outnumber average people in America. Doesn't that make overweight the average then? Last month you were fat, now you're average - hey, let's get a pizza!
One of the things I say is I don't think any of us should be average. Everybody's got a gift. The chance of finding your gift and then sharing it. There's just no room in this world to be average, you need to be the best you can be.
Related Authors
Abi Morgan Quotes
Welsh
Playwright
Arthur Miller Quotes
American
Playwright
August Wilson Quotes
American
Playwright
Eve Ensler Quotes
American
Playwright
George Bernard Shaw Quotes
Irish
Playwright
George C. Wolfe Quotes
American
Playwright
Jeff Lindsay Quotes
American
Playwright
Lynn Nottage Quotes
American
Playwright
Moliere Quotes
French
Playwright
Noel Coward Quotes
English
Playwright
Plautus Quotes
Roman
Playwright
Richard Brinsley Sheridan Quotes
Irish
Playwright
Robert Greene Quotes
English
Playwright
Sam Shepard Quotes
American
Playwright
Tony Kushner Quotes
American
Playwright
William Shakespeare Quotes
English
Playwright