David Bryan Quotes

Both 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report,' you're working with the best. When you work with the best, you have to raise your game. If you're working with people who are sub par, you're not forced to give 100 percent because you can get by on 80 percent.

It's always a nice thought to be coming against the best managers.

The problem is that we set the bar so high, and our stuff is so good, it's tough to top.

All I gotta do is my job, do what it is that I bring to the table - that fire - and put the thump on these songs, and everything's gonna work from there.

I try to play the best I can every time I play. But there's just some folks that seem to draw a little bit of that extra special out of you.

I want good work.

Sometimes it's all about the win, sometimes it's about the skiing.

It seems always to have been difficult to have been a New York Philharmonic conductor because of the nature of New York. We are in direct competition with the great orchestras in the world who come to play in our hall or in Carnegie, and we are constantly compared. I think that 's a good thing.

I've been gone for a long time. I really want to give the fans something that they deserve to have. So, I'm working really hard on this. I really want to make it the best work I've done so far.

It's one thing to execute dishes on your own time for family and friends, but quite another to perform and be judged in a competition. And that's what cooking in a high profile restaurant is. It's a competition. You're up against every other three-star restaurant in your city, and if you want to stay in business, you'd better deliver.

I demand excellence from the people I work with.

I think you need to have people around you whose standard is high and who don't accept anything less.

Quality is easy to talk but hard to make.

We had hundreds of thousands of people all dedicated to doing the perfect job, and I think they did about as well as anyone could ever have expected.

I'm not keeping track, but the record is there for someone to break.

A lot of people may not know how competitive it is to play classical music, because when you think about it, the music that you're playing is music that's been here for years. And all you're trying to do is improve upon it when you play.

Competition on anything is good, because it makes everybody better.

Maintaining our standard; that's our challenge day-in and day-out.

I believe that music is about making quality things, making quality art, and no matter who you decide to work with, you and that person have to come up with something special, come up with something that is excellent material, so whoever hears it and reviews it will like it.

Whenever you face a man who's playing your instrument, there's a competition.

Keep up the old standards, and day by day raise them higher.

It's always interesting to challenge yourself to say, 'Is this the best you can do?'

If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.

If you demand the best, sometimes you get it.

I basically try to give people top quality.