Quotes About Chutzpah

#1. You need to have tremendous confidence in your work, even a touch of arrogance, chutzpah. Many very fine researchers lack intellectual daring. It's human nature to want to be cozy, secure. But that can be a cul de sac.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

#2. 'Moxie' is a name that was created by an American for the first national soft drink and then went on to mean chutzpah, and that's nice.

Penn Jillette

#3. If you've got the body and the chutzpah, a pencil skirt is so sexy on older women. Look for ones that fall just below the knee. Think 1940s, cinched-in jackets - imagine you are Lauren Bacall on a date with Humphrey Bogart and you just absolutely have to wear very high heels.

Twiggy

#4. I have a black belt in chutzpah. I was born with it. Some people, like some of the women I know, have a black belt in spending. They were born with that. But what they gave me was a black belt in chutzpah.

Charlie Munger

#5. An eighty-nine year old kid from Boston playing a blues in New Orleans takes a lot of chutzpah.

George Wein

#6. Nothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah. Don't ever aim doubt at yourself. Laugh at yourself, but don't doubt yourself.

Alan Alda

#7. Admittedly, it would take industrial-grade chutzpah and a massive dose of malevolence for anyone to bulldoze the spot where Neil Armstrong stepped off the Eagle lander. But even innocent visits could be damaging.

Seth Shostak

#8. One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind?

Robert Gottlieb

#9. Chutzpah' is best defined as a small boy peeing through someone's letter box, then ringing the doorbell to ask how far it went.

Maureen Lipman

#10. I succeeded on sort of chutzpah and charm. No technique at all, didn't know what I was doing, but it worked and the character suited me.

Jeremy Irons

#11. My chutzpah was me singing to Mario Lanza. So Mario looked at me after I talk-sang 'Be My Love' for the first time; he took the lyric out of my hand as contemptuously as you can take a lyric out of someone's hand, and he sang 'Be My Love' back at me.

Sammy Cahn

#12. Having a child makes you strong and gives you chutzpah. It relaxed my attitude to the job; my center of focus shifted, which I think is very helpful, because even if you're not a very indulgent actor you spend a lot of time thinking about yourself. I don't think that is particularly healthy.

Imelda Staunton

#13. Selling wine is all about sizing people up, and it takes a certain amount of chutzpah. The tableside bottle sell is a very funny thing - you take a look at the guy's blazer, what kind of shoes he's wearing, what kind of broad he's with. Is he trying to be a hero?

Joe Bastianich

#14. I was always much more shy. All I knew was that I loved to act. But I don't know about the other part of it. I'm not sure I had the chutzpah to go and prove yourself.

Joan Allen

#15. I love the virtuosity and imaginative chutzpah of 'Da Vinci's Demons,' and not just because my boyfriend is in it!

Hattie Morahan

#16. Some musical directors have more chutzpah. They pick up the phone and talk people into giving. I prefer to call and say 'thank you' after the money has been contributed.

Zubin Mehta

#17. As an immerser I progressed to the ranks I aspired to - those that granted me a certain cachet and income while keeping me from fundamental responsibilities. This is what I excelled at: the life-technique of aggregated skill, luck, laziness and chutzpah that we call floaking.

China Mieville

#18. I long to play a judge. I long to play a lesbian woman. I long to play a councilman, someone with some chutzpah.

Lupe Ontiveros

#19. What an enormous chutzpah you possess," I told him. "What makes you better than the rest of us, and more fit to rule?" "The fact that I was able to occupy the throne," he replied. "Try and take it.

Roger Zelazny

#20. China has announced that ... it will hold the beach volleyball contest at the site of the 1989 massacre. Even Hitler didn't have the chutzpah to stage the 100-yard dash at Dachau.

Don Feder

#21. Happiness requires courage, stamina, persistence, fortitude, perseverance, bravery, boldness, valor, vigor, concentration, solidity, substance, backbone, grit, guts, moxie, nerve, pluck, resilience, spunk, tenacity, tolerance, will power, chutzpah, and a good thesaurus.

Peter McWilliams

#22. Charm is an intangible. Chutzpah, charm, charisma, that kind of thing, you can't buy it. You either have it or you don't.

Colm Feore

#23. Is this irony, hypocrisy, or a contradiction? I'm never sure which term is appropriate." "Call it all three if you want," Andreas said. "Chutzpah. That's a fourth term.

Jonathan Franzen

#24. I never had the chutzpah to just come to L.A. and make it. I didn't have that confidence. I'm always surprised when I get a job.

Isla Fisher

#25. I don't care if you care, I retorted. But in my religion, we're taught to admit our mistakes and to apologize for them ... Oh, and there's one other thing I'm sorry about, I added. I should've spit in your eye and called you a szhlob weeks ago.

Amy Fellner Dominy

#26. Those who take lives will lose their own. Those who kill, will die. But he who gives his own life away will live again!

Philip K. Dick

#27. It is pointless to be any less than all you can be.

Nick Bantock

#28. The result of my not caring so much about what I say allows me to care more about how I say it. P. 4

Mindy Kaling

#29. Small scale is critical to local life, to the ability of local people to control what happens where they live.

Paul Weyrich

#30. My death from the wrists, two name tags, blood worn like a corsage to bloom one on the left and one on the right.

Anne Sexton

#31. A soul can be saved. But it will take softness and depth and space. The world won't help much.

John Ortberg