A neurotic can perfectly well be a literary genius, but his greatest danger is always that he will not recognize when he is dull.
But I just know from experience that accent wise, even if you’re an accent genius, crossing the Atlantic is the hardest thing in the world either way.
There are not many people that I respect more than rappers. I’m a huge fan of hip hop. It’s incredible, one of the most influential things to me. It takes real genius to be able to do well. It’s a very deep art form.
Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes.
Nothing is so envied as genius, nothing so hopeless of attainment by labor alone. Though labor always accompanies the greatest genius, without the intellectual gift labor alone will do little.
It is easy to be seen as either a genius or a crank. If you have a Ph.D., at least you somewhat lower the chances that you will be seen as a crank.
It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.
Hollandaise, I would like to pour over my head and just rub all over myself. Eggs Benedict is genius. It’s eggs covered in eggs.
So, okay, I’m not a genius. Vincent Van Gogh and Albert Einstein were geniuses.
The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius.
One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire.
I wouldn’t use the word ‘scared’ for my role as Hitchcock, but it was my most insecure. Taking on such a formidable, giant personality such as Hitchcock; he was one of the great geniuses of world cinema. Sheer genius.
Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows unconsciously into genius.
The iPhone will forever be associated with the inventive genius of Steve Jobs and Silicon Valley. But the roots of innovation can be traced back – from one genius to another, at least – back to the genius who put the phone in iPhone: Alexander Graham Bell.
It requires genius to make a good pun – some men of bright parts can’t reach it.
Now that I’m on Broadway, it’s like NASA engineering with the costumes. I was very grateful for the slightly more high-tech ones in my show, ‘Venus in Fur’; our costume designer Anita Yavich is kind of a genius.
Joss Whedon who created ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer,’ ‘Angel,’ and all that… he is a genius.
One of my greatest inspirations for stand-up was Jonathan Winters. He was a genius. One thing about him, and also Lenny Bruce, is that they were in the tradition of the one-man show. That’s why Richard Pryor was so great, and George Carlin, too. They prowled the stage, they used voices, they were really talents.
When ‘Watchmen’ was published in 1986, the vast majority of comics readers deemed it a watershed in comics history. The 12-part serial comic book was widely acclaimed as a genius subversion of the superhero genre, and it did much to popularize comics to adults.
The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.
God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius.
Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes no victories without it.
A product is usually created to improve people’s lives; otherwise, why buy it? I’m no genius, but I am an American, and gosh-darnit, I consume, so I know what I’m talking about.
I think the founding fathers, in their genius, created a system of three co-equal branches of government and a built-in system of checks and balances.
Mike gets to play four roles this time, if we ever did it again, he will play my role as well. He is a comic genius, everyone wants to be in this movie, let’s hope that everyone will wish to see it as well.
Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
Jim Henson was an absolute genius.
When you hear the party that glorified Occupy Wall Street blast success; when you hear them minimize the genius of the men and women who make jobs out of nothing, is that what you teach your children about work?
It is of no consequence whether a man of genius have learned either art or science before twenty-five: all that is necessary, or even desirable, is that his powers should be unfolded, his emulation roused, and his habits conducted into a right channel.
The genius of vinyl is that it allows – commands! – us to put our fingerprints all over that history: to blend and chop and reconfigure it, mock and muse upon it, backspin and skip through it.
If you go back and look, a completely underrated film is ‘Quest for Fire.’ That was one of the most genius, simplistic but incredibly sophisticated notion of what it was. The evolution of that was just fantastic.
I was in Milan, and somebody gave me a Trussardi diary, and I thought ‘Genius.’ Inside I put the Polaroids, how much film I shot, who I shot with. This way, for billing later on, I had all the information.
I think Mike Nichols is brilliant, but I think Jerry Robbins was a genius.
What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero.
Richard Avedon is a true genius of photography and one of the greatest artists of our time.
It’s called ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’ by Dave Eggers. It is absolutely everything the title implies. It’s the greatest book I’ve ever.
At home I have a Tibetan terrier. I’m still not sure if he’s a genius or very thick. It’s a fine line.
There are so many cliches associated with mental health – such as the ‘fine line between lunacy and genius’ – which are, on the whole, a load of rubbish.
If you’re a man and you ask questions, you’re a genius; if you’re a woman, you’re difficult.
Holy Joy were a cult ’80s band led by the wonderful songwriting genius that is Johny Brown.
I remembered watching the film from Alfred Hitchcock, ‘Dial M for Murder,’ and he shot almost all of that movie in one room. There was a genius in what Hitchcock did by manipulating things in that room so that you could see the distances between things like the tables and the vases because of how he used perspective.
Every true genius is bound to be naive.
Rules and models destroy genius and art.
From every ancient source, we have testimony to Cleopatra’s irresistible charm, as Plutarch has it, to her ability to speak many languages including, as he puts it, the language of flattery and essentially, to be able to turn people to her will – really a great political genius, in that respect.
I wouldn’t say jamie is an evil genius. I’m not sure he’s evil and I’m not sure he’s a genius.
Genius is not perfected, it is deepened. It does not so much interpret the world as fertilize itself with it.
Ataturk approved of the mevlevi dervish approach to God as being ‘an expression of Turkish genius’ that reclaimed Islam from what he saw as hide-bound, backward Arab tradition.
Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.
My brother and I have matching tattoos on our arms. It says, ‘Humility is strength,’ in Portuguese and Italian, because my genius brother taught English in both Italy and Brazil.
My ultimate is Peter Sellers – his ability to go broad and somehow humanize that and be hilarious at the same time. He was just relatable, real at the same time as insane. I find Ricky Gervais absolutely hilarious. Steve Martin is another hero of mine – he’s a genius.
Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.
Honestly, I feel like I spent the last 10 years just trying to work, just get my hands on the best material I could. I’d like to say that it was quite calculated and genius, my ability to take one step forward and two steps back.