Top 100 Quotes About Amateurs
#1. It is by sitting down to write every morning that he becomes a writer. Those who do not do this remain amateurs.
Gerald Brenan
#2. It was not very easy for a woman to impose herself as a modern artist in Germany ... Most of our male colleagues continued for a long time to look upon us as charming and gifted amateurs, denying us implicitly any real professional status.
Hannah Hoch
#3. Without professionalism I'd be an amateur, and the clients I want don't hire amateurs.
David Airey
#5. [About John Evershed] There is much in our medallist's career which is a reminder of the scientific life of Sir William Huggins. They come from the same English neighbourhood and began as amateurs of the best kind. They both possess the same kind of scientific aptitude.
Hugh Newall
#6. Amateurs are not afraid to make mistakes or look ridiculous in public. They're in love, so they don't hesitate to do work that others think of as silly or just plain stupid.
Austin Kleon
#7. The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs.
Herodotus
#8. For most adult amateurs trying to keep their heels down forces their feet forward which throws them out of balance.
Michael Schaffer
#9. It's wildly irritating to have invented something as revolutionary as sarcasm, only to have it abused by amateurs.
Christopher Moore
#10. The word 'professional' doesn't hold any magic or mystique. The people who really change the world are usually amateurs
Dave Hampton
#11. The great happiness in life in creativity belongs to amateurs.
Joyce Carol Oates
#12. It's turned into a world of amateurs. There are amateur actors making millions of dollars, amateur cinematographers, amateur directors ... Jesus, these amateur directors can get deals for anything. Another comic book? Oh, very good.
James Coburn
#13. The biggest criminals that I have met in life are working for the government. They make mass murderers look like amateurs.
Steven Magee
#15. Most playwrights go wrong on the fifth word. When you start a play and you type 'Act one, scene one,' your writing is every bit as good as Arthur Miller or Eugene O'Neill or anyone. It's that fifth word where amateurs start to go wrong.
Meredith Willson
#16. And when I protested a bit more, I remember he said, 'My dear Lady Ponsonby, there's nothing immoral about this. Art is only immoral when practiced by amateurs. It's the same with medicine. You wouldn't refuse to undress before your doctor, would you?
Roald Dahl
#17. Amateurs write when they are inspired. Professionals are inspired when they write. This is a subtle but important distinction.
Michael Hyatt
#18. Most nervous I've ever been is probably the 2007 Walker Cup. I was a little boy playing with these 8 or 9 other guys that were the best amateurs in the country.
Rickie Fowler
#19. As a wise man once said, "April Fools Day is for amateurs. You NEVER need an excuse to mess with people's heads."
Al Yankovic
#20. Goddamn amateurs," Trigg mutters. "Ten minutes," Holiday repeats.
Pierce Brown
#21. Amateurs ... venture into scenes that a writer with more experience (and more professional concern) would bypass or eschew altogether.
Norman Mailer
#22. Are we amateurs and not professionals? We know the lessons of history, we know the mistakes and we either act accordingly or collapse. Salvation lies in clarity and the courage to implement change
Thomas S. Power
#23. Amateurs wait for inspiration. The real pros get up and go to work.
Harvey MacKay
#24. Anytime you're afraid to try something new ... just remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the titanic.
David Drake
#25. Amateurs train until they get it right.
Professionals train until they cannot get it wrong.
Jose N. Harris
#26. It is amateurs who have one big bright beautiful idea that they can never abandon. Professionals know that they have to produce theory after theory before they are likely to hit the jackpot.
Francis Crick
#27. Inspiration is for amateurs," Close says. "The rest of us just show up and get to work.
Mason Currey
#28. It is frankly a mistake of amateurs to believe you can gain the upper hand in a diplomatic negotiation.
Henry A. Kissinger
#29. Right before I start the putter back, I think about making solid contact. This brings your attention to the back of the ball and helps keep your head still at impact, which is a must. Many amateurs take a peek down the line too soon, and that can cause all sorts of mis-hits.
Ernie Els
#30. 90% of the people in the stock market, professionals and amateurs alike, simply haven't done enough homework.
William O'Neil
#31. I remember leaving the hospital - thinking, 'Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don't know beans about babies! I don't have a license to do this.' We're just amateurs.
Anne Tyler
#32. There are so many great 19th-century photographers, and it's really my favorite period, but the amateurs did such beautiful work.
Patti Smith
#33. Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.
Alan Greenspan
#34. I think the Chinese are really amateurs when it comes to running markets.
David Wessel
#35. If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security.
Bruce Schneier
#36. Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned. May not one lost soul be permitted to abstain?
George Bernard Shaw
#37. Baseball's absolute unpredictability makes amateurs of us all
Roger Angell
#38. War is always a professional enterprise; despair is left to amateurs.
Hans Koning
#39. Amateurs practice until they get it right.
Professionals practice until it can't go wrong.
Julie Andrews
#40. Writing a novel is like building a wall brick by brick; only amateurs believe in inspiration.
Frank Yerby
#41. The history of creation is but a succession of battles between amateurs of genius-inspired heretics- and orthodox professionals.
Jacques Barzun
#42. We attracted a lot of market timers and asset allocators. I don't need those ... amateurs in my fund.
Martin J. Whitman
#43. The world is changing at such a rapid rate that it's turning us all into amateurs. Even for professionals, the best way to flourish is to retain an amateur's spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown.
Austin Kleon
#44. The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
Alan Kay
#45. Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Chuck Close
#46. The British public has always had an unerring taste for ungifted amateurs.
John Osborne
#47. History is one of the only fields where contributions by amateurs are taken seriously, providing you follow the rules and document your sources. In history, it's what you write, not what your credentials are.
George Dyson
#48. Adepts of either Good or Evil are relatively rare in human shape. Most of us are still amateurs, which is fortunate for us all, because even moderate experts of evil can cause enough harm among humanity as it is.
Anonymous
#49. All men who run for presidency of the United States are amateurs; there is no way of becoming a professional at it, and all of them, win or lose, are forever altered in spirit of character by the ordeal.
Theodore H. White
#50. For far too long the House of Commons has been run as little more than a private club by and for gentleman amateurs.
John Bercow
#51. There were a lot of gifted amateurs in my day. Most of the kids now play fantastically well. I think there are so many bands around now who might get there, but it's a tougher journey.
Nick Mason
#52. This is yet another trait of amateurs - they'll use whatever tools they can get their hands on to try to get their ideas into the world.
Austin Kleon
#53. To find the best moves great Masters, with years of experience, engage in laborious research, and the moves thus found are blindly repeated by amateurs without any attempt to fathom their real meaning and how and why they stand in their context.
Eugene Znosko-Borovsky
#54. Waiting for inspiration is for amateurs; professionals get to work.
Robert Genn
#57. General ideas are more flattering. And then professionals and even amateurs always end up by being right
Jean-Paul Sartre
#58. Above all, an author must write passionately and edit dispassionately. Poe's willingness to ruthlessly strip down and rebuild his old poems showed a dedication to craft that a professional must have, one that quickly wilts most amateurs.
Paul Collins
#59. Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people.
Bruce Schneier
#60. Although professionals are able to extract a considerable amount of wealth from amateurs, few stock pickers, if any, have the skill needed to beat the market consistently, year after year.
Daniel Kahneman
#62. I'm 0 for 3 with marriage - the scoreboard doesn't lie, never has. So what we all have is a marriage of the heart. To sully or contaminate or radically disrespect this union with a shameful contract is something that I will leave to the amateurs and the Bible grippers.
Charlie Sheen
#63. Amateurs in professional situations make me very impatient.
David Coverdale
#64. True artists unburden their envies and work toward encouraging amateurs.
Aniruddha Sastikar
#65. Universities are institutions run by amateurs to train professionals.
Derek Bok
#66. More clumsily,he put his arm around her and tried to hug. They were definitely amateurs at showing affection.
Caroline B. Cooney
#67. Amateurs believe their enthusiasm will suffice.
Mason Cooley
#68. I don't believe in inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. Some of the time you know you're cooking, and the rest of the time, you just do it.
Chuck Close
#69. Amateurs try to write in one go; professionals draft and
draft again.
Alastair Fowler
#70. What followed for two hours was such an adventure as only wretched amateurs would indulge in...
Hilaire Belloc
#71. Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built he Titanic.
Elizabeth May
#72. With basketball, if a guy is having an off night you still can say he's a good athlete. But with a comedian, you see them in front of the wrong audience - and they can look like complete amateurs. It's remarkable.
Gary Gulman
#73. Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!
Edna Ferber
#74. A lot of amateurs are terrified of going up against a player who is clearly better than they are. They never play their best, because they aren't comfortable. There's one surefire way to get over that, and it's to ask yourself, 'What if I beat him?' Imagine the possibility.
Fuzzy Zoeller
#75. The world's greatest thinkers have often been amateurs; for high thinking is the outcome of fine and independent living, and for that a professional chair offers no special opportunities.
Havelock Ellis
#76. and we must endeavour to persuade those who are to be the principal men of our State to go and learn arithmetic, not as amateurs, but they must carry on the study until they see the nature of numbers with the mind only;
Plato
#77. Some of the most corrupt people that you will meet in life are working in corporate government law enforcement. They make criminals look like amateurs.
Steven Magee
#78. I did an 'Our Town' in San Diego in the seventies with amateurs that I can tear up just thinking about.
Jack O'Brien
#80. Discipline is for professionals.
Motivation is for amateurs.
J.R. Rim
#81. Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateurs drunks, the bores.
Charles Bukowski
#82. Amateurs do things 'till they get it right. Pros do it 'till they can't get it wrong.
Steven Jackson
#83. As long as you are hanging around amateurs, you will think like an amateur, and you will not improve your skills.
John C. Maxwell
#84. I was always scared in the amateurs, but the minute I got in the ring it was like another person took over. I become more vicious. In there I love to hurt people. Outside I can't hurt a bug.
Nonito Donaire
#85. The Mafia and crime bosses of this world are amateurs compared to this syndicate, ruled by the prince of darkness and the master of deception who wears many disguises and has many aliases.
Adrian Rogers
#86. In both the art and the business worlds, the difference between the amateurs and the professionals is simple: The professionals know they're winging it. The amateurs pretend they're not.
Amanda Palmer
#87. Last night, President Bush gave a prime-time press conference. It was such a big deal that Fox decided to preempt American Idol. Which made sense to me, you don't want too many amateurs on in one night.
David Letterman
#88. Amateurs look for challenges; professionals look for easy trades. Losers get high from the action; the pros look for the best odds.
Alexander Elder
#89. No other great master has been so misunderstood by the vast majority of chess amateurs and even by many masters, as has Emanuel Lasker.
Jose Raul Capablanca
#90. There are no amateurs in the world of children.
Don DeLillo
#91. You are trying to lure us into revealing information you're not entitled to? With chocolate and wine? Are you amateurs?
Moira J. Moore
#93. Vision is easy. Ideas are even easier. It's execution that separates the amateurs from the pros.
Blaine Hogan
#94. Who gives a damn about being remembered? That's really for amateurs.
Gore Vidal
#97. Oh, my poor, sweet cousin from Oklahoma," Tonya said, shaking her head. "You, my dear, are in big trouble." "I am?" Kylie asked, turning to her friend, wearing her panic all over her face. "You're in love. And as I've said before, this shit ain't for amateurs.
Caisey Quinn
#98. As an amateur you have an advantage over photographers - you can do as you wish ... This should make amateurs the happiest of photographers.
Andreas Feininger
#99. However, he didn't have a high opinion of the average man's ability as a fighter. The majority of men couldn't fight at all and even most outlaws were the merest amateurs when it came to battle. Few could shoot well, and even fewer had any mind for strategy.
Larry McMurtry
#100. We may complain and cavil at the anarchy which is the amateurs natural element, but in soberness we must agree that if the amateur did not exist it would be necessary to invent him.
Jacques Barzun
