Bad actors try to cry, and good actors try not to. Bad actors try to laugh, and good actors try not to.
Martin LandauRead
I studied with Strasberg, Elia Kazan. They raised the bar. They weren't easy to please, and they made you achieve the best you could do. That's what a teacher does: he infuses you with passion for something.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A good teacher inspires passion and pushes you to reach your full potential.
In this quote, Martin Landau reflects on his experiences with influential mentors who demanded excellence and fostered a deep passion for the craft of acting. He emphasizes that the role of a teacher goes beyond merely imparting knowledge; it involves inspiring students to pursue their passions wholeheartedly and to strive for their best performance, which ultimately leads to personal growth and achievement.
Themes
TeacherPassionExcellenceMentorshipInspiration
In practice
Example use cases
In a classroom setting, a teacher can use this quote to motivate students to push their limits.
More from Martin Landau
All quotes →I run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.
Martin LandauRead
As a Jew, there's a need to keep that atrocity alive. There were Catholics and gypsies and homosexuals who died in the Holocaust, too. It's amazing that people allowed this slaughter to take place. There's a need to make these films and reiterate it happened.
Martin LandauRead
I love to see lack of clarity in a performance as well as clarity, as well as trust, as well as the kinds of things that human beings go through. I love to see spontaneity and 'inevitability.' How it gets there is going to shock the hell out of me, but it will get there somehow.
Martin LandauRead
People think I'm a very serious actor, which I am. But you know, if you don't have a sense of humor doing what I do, you perish.
Martin LandauRead
Dialogue is what a character's willing to share and reveal to another character, and the 90% they aren't willing to share is what I do for a living.
Martin LandauRead
Similar quotes
In some suburban schools, the curriculum is chock-full of rigorous A.P. courses and the parking lot glitters with pricey SUVs, but one doesn't have to look hard to find students who are starving themselves, cutting themselves, or medicating themselves, as well students who are taking out their frustrations on those who sit lower on the social food chain.
Alfie KohnRead
If Confucius can serve as the Patron Saint of Chinese education, let me propose Socrates as his equivalent in a Western educational context - a Socrates who is never content with the initial superficial response, but is always probing for finer distinctions, clearer examples, a more profound form of knowing. Our concept of knowledge has changed since classical times, but Socrates has provided us with a timeless educational goal - ever deeper understanding.
Howard GardnerRead
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
Anatole FranceRead
I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn't that they are inaccurate, but that they're incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think about contemporary African literature. The problem isn't that it's inaccurate, it's that it's incomplete.
Taiye SelasiRead
I often think that the prime directive for me as a teacher of writing is akin to that for a physician, which is this: do no harm.
Chang-Rae LeeRead
All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
Samuel JohnsonRead