Quotes about talent

You won’t be an artist if you live a thousand years. You’re merely an expert, and you know it. Those who can—do, those who can’t—criticise.

The mathematician is born, not made.

Despite countless hours of practice, dozens of auditions, many artistic disputes, seven demo CDs, and two radical changes in hairstyle, Arrival never arrived. It wasn't that they were bad; it was just that, as they reluctantly came to understand, they really weren't anything special. They were competent. The problem was, there were competent bands everywhere. Competence wasn't the key to stardom; you needed something else. Whatever it was, Arrival didn't have it. (Chapter 3)

I have, over the years, received in the mail approximately 17 million manuscripts from people whose goal is to become professional writers. They want me to discover them, encourage them, mentor them, find them an agent, etc. Some of these people have talent; some of them have actually become professional writers. But a great many of them will never become professional writers, because- follow me closely here- they are not good at writing. Of course I don't tell them that. Probably nobody will ever tell them that. They will continue to try and fail, and in the end they'll be bitter, like the early-round contestants on American Idol who think they got booted because Simon Cowell is mean, rather than because their singing sounds like a bull being castrated with a hockey stick. These contestants humiliated themselves on national TV because when they were growing up, loving to sing, always singing around the house, no thoughtful family member or caring friend ever had the kindness to put a hand on their shoulder and say, in a gentle and loving voice, "You suck." They needed Simon Cowells, but instead they were surrounded by Randy Jacksons and Paula Abduls, trying to be nice, not wanting to hurt their feelings, and thus setting them up for failure.

But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.

You see, lots of the real people can't do it at all: they're such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position; and so they never learn. There's always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well.