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"My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest."
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Exlpore more Ability quotes
"A book comes and says, "Write me." My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate."
"The size of a fish does not determine its speed."
"I didn't want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that's a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I'm proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it."
"Talent can be a nice thing to have sometimes. You look good, attract attention, and if you're lucky, you make some money. Women flock to you. In that sense, having talent's preferable to having none. But talent only functions when it's supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn. If talent's the foundation you rely on, and yet it's so unreliable that you have no idea what's going to happen to it the next minute, what meaning does it have?"
"I like to think of sales as the ability to gracefully persuade, not manipulate, a person or persons into a win-win situation."
"Yeah, I am a little bit, and I think it is a natural progression of the sport, of going upwards in technical ability and everything like that."
Explore more quotes by James Weldon Johnson
"You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There's a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that's just begun."
"Americans are immensely popular in Paris; and this is not due solely to the fact that they spend lots of money there, for they spend just as much or more in London, and in the latter city they are merely tolerated because they do spend."
"I had enjoyed life in Paris, and, taking all things into consideration, enjoyed it wholesomely."
"The peculiar fascination which the South held over my imagination and my limited capital decided me in favor of Atlanta University; so about the last of September I bade farewell to the friends and scenes of my boyhood and boarded a train for the South."
"Southern white people despise the Negro as a race, and will do nothing to aid in his elevation as such; but for certain individuals they have a strong affection, and are helpful to them in many ways."
"When we arrived in London, my sadness at leaving Paris was turned into despair. After my long stay in the French capital, huge, ponderous, massive London seemed to me as ugly a thing as man could contrive to make."
"There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it."
"It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character."
"Through my music teaching and my not absolutely irregular attendance at church, I became acquainted with the best class of colored people in Jacksonville."
"Any musical person who has never heard a Negro congregation under the spell of religious fervor sing these old songs has missed one of the most thrilling emotions which the human heart may experience."
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