The definition of genius, really, should be that that person can do what the rest of us have to learn how to do.

I did get Tom Hanks to say, Life is just a box of chocolates.

The studio is meant to be always a place where, first of all, they can be out of spotlight, and second, where they could work with a peer group on parts that they might not have played otherwise.

I was originally going to be a lawyer, and the only thing I remember from the art of cross-examination is - you can see this one coming up Sixth Avenue - never ask a question the answer to which you do not know.

I thought we would have at most an audience of 5,000 devotees because I made the decision to stick to craft, not to gossip, not to be interested in any of the juicy stuff that they talk about on other shows, but stick to the question of craft.

We are the only school in America, drama school in America that trains actors, writers and directors side by side for three years in a master's degree program, and we want them - to expose them to everything.

Comedians don't laugh. They're too busy analyzing why it's funny or not.

I was dealing with craft, and that's the surprising thing, the number of people who have literally broken down on our stage, because when you're talking about the thing that is most important to someone, they're liable to feel something strong.

I criticize those critics. The reason being that they're doing one of the worst things that ever can be done to an actor, which is to say, Look, you do what we like you to do or else.

I had something called the back of the chair test. Where I sit, we don't sit like you and I do. I can see a sliver right behind them and they come out and they sit like this like god students and they don't touch the back of the chair.

They will take a role that scares them over a role that doesn't. That's another thing I like about actors.

It can be summed up in one sentence. Does this person have something to teach my students? No one has ever let us down.

Because - Bobby Lewis said this once to us in class, the better you get, the less credit you'll get. Because the better you are, the more it looks like walking and talking and everybody thinks they can walk and talk.

What I didn't know that by sticking to craft we would blow open some doors that I never saw opened before.

Hackman is able to live in the moment which means there is nothing for him at that split second than what is occurring in the scene.

I think that anybody's craft is fascinating. A taxi driver talking about taxi driving is going to be very, very interesting.

When it began I wrote this passionate letter to people I knew, studio members, of course, and other people with whom we have worked over the years and I said come and teach our students.

If I were to ask you for example right now to go back with me and define those moments in your life that shaped you as a person and you began to reexamine them, something would happen.

Olivier was another case of a genius, who couldn't understand why anybody would have any trouble doing this, because for him it came so easily.

Geniuses always think it's easier than we make it out to be.

The foundation for film acting is stage acting.

The definition of genius, really, should be that that person can do what the rest of us have to learn how to do.

The difference - the fundamental difference between theater acting and film acting is that film acting is disjunctive.

They change. They're different. There are no two alike, that's the miracle of it. But if they have something to teach the students. You can see them writing during the show.

I wanted when we began this to have a conversation, the kind that you're able to have, and the only way I knew how to do it was not to have a pre-interview.

I'll tell you why, I don't invite the ones I don't like.

And I thought if I don't pre-interview - first of all, we couldn't afford it - but the second thing was it would force me to do my own research, which takes two weeks.

And I thought, my God, there's an off chance that they will say something that's really worth preserving and there is one way to do that and I knew what it was because I come from television.

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.

Clinton's fakery was so deft and deeply ingrained that it was impossible to tell where it ended and the real Bill Clinton began. This constituted a kind of political genius.

Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.

I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

Doorman - a genius who can open the door of your car with one hand, help you in with the other, and still have one left for the tip.

Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.

I am a genius. Then it amused me to keep saying so, but now it does not. I expected to be happy sometime. Now I know I shall never be.

Churchill was one of the few men I have met who even in the flesh give me the impression of genius. George Bernard Shaw is another. It is amusing to know that each thinks the other is overrated.

The person who figures out how to harness the collective genius of his or her organization is going to blow the competition away.

The genius of the economic machine is in its ability to convert these indulgences into profitability. It converts desire into attention, a grip on our eyeballs and eardrums, which in turn can be marketed to advertisers.

Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.

It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

Better beware of notions like genius and inspiration; they are a sort of magic wand and should be used sparingly by anybody who wants to see things clearly.

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

Anybody can put things together that belong together. to put things together that don't go together, and make it work, that takes genius like Mozart's. Yet he is presented in the play Amadeus as a kind of silly boy whom the gods loved.

God gives talent. Work transforms talent into genius.

The modes of expression of men of genius differ as much as their souls, and it is impossible to say that in some among them, drawing and color are better or worse than in others.

The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.