Effort Vs Talent Quotes

In one world, effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you're not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn't need effort. In the other world, effort is what makes you smart or talented.

A.J. Liebling, one of my heroes, used to say that he could write better than anyone who wrote faster, and faster than anyone who could write better. I'm one nine-hundredth as good as Liebling, but that principle may slightly apply.

You can't take credit for talent; you can only take credit for using it.

If you asked someone, 'Can you play the violin?' and he says, 'I don't know, I have not tried, perhaps I can,' you laugh at him. Whereas about writing, people always say: 'I don't know, I have not tried,' as though one had only to try and one would become a writer.

It takes a different mindset to be successful in anything; that's why there's not a lot of super duper successful people, because it's guys I know who may be ten times more talented than me, but they don't work as hard.

I don't have the physical talent those guys have. My hard work has made me very good.

A skill is something that you aren't inherently talented at and that isn't an effortless action, the way your thinking talents might be, but is something you can become excellent at nonetheless.

If I stop practising, I will be an average singer. There are a lot of singers I know who hardly practise, yet sing well.

Any time I try to play anything that doesn't come natural, I'm just plain bad.