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.
The English mind is always in a rage. The intellect of the race is wasted in the sordid and stupid quarrels of second-rate politicians or third-rate theologians.
If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?
But I think that sometimes, when one's behaved like a rather second-rate person, the way I did at breakfast, then in a kind of self-destructive shock one goes and does something really second-rate. Almost as if to prove it.
The great trouble with you Americans is that you are still under the influence of that second-rate - shall I say third-rate? - mind, Karl Marx.
I knew that even if I were second or third rate, it was astronomy that mattered.
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.
World class is a phrase used by provincial cities and second-rate entertainment events, as well as a wide variety of insecure individuals, to assert that they are not provincial or second-rate, thereby confirming that they are.
There is no room in music for the second-rate - it might just as well be the nineteenth-rate.
Astronomy is something like the ministry. No one should go into it without a call. I got that unmistakable call, and I know that even if I were second-rate or third-rate, it was astronomy that mattered.
Being a rather second-rate actress, I finally thought, 'I'd rather be a designer.' I knew I could make things look good.
What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.
First rate mathematicians choose first rate people, but second rate mathematicians choose third rate people.
A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.
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.