Joshua Waitzkin Quotes

I was never a prodigy.

I'm not a prodigy - or a 'wonderboy,' as some have put it.

I am on an elite level of talent.

The only term I won't accept is "genius."

The thing that most people call 'genius' I do not believe in.

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.

People think I must have been so talented at an early age, but I don't know - was it talent or hard work? Who knows?

Look at the real prodigies, and I look like nothing compared to them.

Uzi is insanely good and super creative.

You have to have some form of talent. Getting to a skill-set when you can do something is achievable. Getting to a skill-set when you can do it an elite level is a different thing.

Talent is some one faculty unusually developed; genius commands all the faculties.

He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.

A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity.

A man who possesses genius is insufferable unless he also possesses at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness.

I was never a prodigy. I was never a child genius.

It is only occasional that talent becomes genius - radiating sparks, brilliance, energy, and charismatic magnetism... such a talent was Janis Joplin.

I'm definitely more talented than most of the guys I know.

Genius. It's a word. What does it really mean? If I win I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not.

There are probably very few people who have not at some time of their lives had some quality of genius. If they have not had such, it is probable that they have also been without great sorrow or great pain. They would have needed only to live sufficiently intently for a time for some quality to reveal itself. The poems of first love are a case in point, and certainly such love is a sufficient stimulus.

Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man.

I'm a great songwriter, but I'm not the most talented musician.

Consider first, that great or bright infers not excellence.

Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience.

I was given a tremendous gift in terms of athleticism. Maybe it was because I wasn't so confident in other areas.

... Geniuses have a little extra something. There's that little something that you know is a little different.