Quotes About Determination

I always felt great about what I wrote for 'Newsies,' but 'Newsies' was a total flop.

When I was eight years old, I wrote a paragraph-long short story about a goat on my mother's hundred-pound, black-and-white-screen laptop. The story came about largely because I liked the way the word 'goat' looked on the page, but I decided then and there that I wanted to be a writer. That desire never changed.

I'm So Sorry' is probably one of my favorite songs that I've written... I wrote it very quickly and confidently. And then I didn't question it.

I had my whole life to write a bunch of crappy songs and then play them in front of people and think, 'All right, that one out of these seven is really good; it's a keeper.' But on this second album, to be honest, I probably wrote about 50 songs where I was just trying to write a hit.

I wrote 'Mr. In-Between' very quickly when I was about 23. I wrote the penultimate chapter, then realised I'd done something which was written to the best of my abilities. I panicked. I hesitated to finish the final chapter and went into withdrawal for three years. I decided to pick it up again after I went drinking with author Tim Binding.

I was incredibly determined - I wrote short stories, I wrote the beginnings of novels. I wrote a little children's book and sent it to the editor-in-chief of the children's division of Simon and Schuster and she asked me to write a little children's book for a series she was doing.

When I was 19, I wrote a novel, which was not very good, but I finished it.

I wrote eight full-length adult novels in my twenties. None of them were published.

I like the guys who wrote their own stuff and were able to perform it, like Seth Rogen. He popped off so young. When he did 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin,' and he was a co-producer on the movie, I was like, 'Oh my God: that's exactly what I want to do.'

At 31, I decided to learn how to read and, at 32, read my first book: Lee Iacocca's autobiography. Ten years later, with my friend Larry 'Smokey' Genta, I wrote my first book, which was my proudest accomplishment.

The biggest thing for me when I got to L.A. was everybody wrote us off to make the playoffs. That was one of my goals. Put that on my mirror. We did it as a team. And that's my thing: Wherever I go, I'm going to win.

That's why I wrote 'Fighter'. I have that need in me to help people. I am all about the underdog.

Six years, I didn't act. Then I wrote myself a role - I won prizes all over the world.

I got my first real job, one that didn't involve wearing a hairnet or bending over the hood of a wet car with a towel in my hand, in the early '90s working for CBS Records. While there, I started my first of several rock bands and eventually wrote my first book, the semi-autobiographical novel, 'Don't Sleep With Your Drummer.'

Growing up, I would watch a movie on video and would go to the back of the VHS and locate the address for Universal Pictures or MGM or whatever. I'd write to the studios asking them if I could be in a movie. They never wrote me back.

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn't think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

From the moment I wrote 'Leaf Storm' I realized I wanted to be a writer and that nobody could stop me and that the only thing left for me to do was to try to be the best writer in the world.

I wrote my first book at eight, all of four pages. At 10, I did a 40-page story. At 12, I wrote two stage plays.

How do I let the director know how obsessed I am and willing to do anything for the movie? Like, I wanted to write this one director a letter, so I wrote him a handwritten note. But then I was like, 'How many people are writing this guy handwritten letters? Is it going to seem cheesy? What do I do?'

In 1987, I wrote a goal sheet. I didn't want to waste my life. I'd dropped out of college, and there was a lot of pressure from my parents. I decided, 'If you're going to do this, you're going to become the best in the world at this.'

It was early on in 1965 when I wrote some of my first poems. I sent a poem to 'Harper's' magazine because they paid a dollar a line. I had an eighteen-line poem, and just as I was putting it into the envelope, I stopped and decided to make it a thirty-six-line poem. It seemed like the poem came back the next day: no letter, nothing.

My theory is that I decided to be a writer when I was about seven, but of course it is not as simple as that. Like most writers, I had to work at other things to earn a living and wrote mainly in the evenings, often very late at night, for many years.

I wrote that letter, and the one to Nixon. And I wrote more letters, and I thought it might be a magazine article. At that time I sent it to Esquire and Playboy, but anyway, I kept writing, and all of sudden I had enough and thought, well maybe it is a book.

And it was out in the theaters in two weeks. This is not, 'We're going to develop twenty-five and maybe one's going to get made,' so the first three things I wrote got up on the screen and, good, bad or indifferent, I got to see them on their feet.