Quotes About Determination

I have a son, and I'm not going to teach him to back down from anybody.

If there's no fire, there's no scream. If there's no scream, then no one hears you and no one comes to help you in the first place. The depth of my struggle has definitely determined the height of my success. To be able to teach my kids not just about success but about the struggle that comes with it.

How do I take a step? How do I lift my foot off the ground, move it through the air a little bit and then bring it down? I had to teach myself to walk again.

My mother told me not to listen to anyone. She had been told that she wouldn't be able to teach and she did.

I'd like to say I was smart enough to finish six grades in five years, but I think perhaps the teacher was just glad to get rid of me.

I started the class late. The teacher said I would have to learn as much in half a year that the others learned in a year. I did it.

My second grade teacher told me I would never graduate high school. That I was going to be a juvenile delinquent.

I was in special ed, but I felt like I was a caged bird. I felt like I could do better. I made sure I mastered my special ed lessons. I made sure I listened to my teacher. I made sure I did my homework, but I had to do a little extra.

I didn't want to be the archetypal sponging brother-in-law, so I didn't go into acting when I got to the States. I thought, 'No, I'll go to school and then I'll be an English teacher; that'll be fun.' But I was horrible as a teacher. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't inspire those kids to take an interest in Milton and Shakespeare and Donne.

My mother wanted to be a teacher when she was young, and my father didn't approve of it, so she fought very hard to become one. And she did it. So when I said I wanted to become an actress, my mother was very supportive. She always said to me, 'There's no such thing as 'can't.'

My painting teacher in high school used to say, 'I can't paint like I want to, but through practice I'll get better.' But I don't think that's true. I think sometimes you just can't paint.

My teachers probably tried to get me interested in other things at school, but I was very young when I decided that I wanted to act. By the time I was 12, I was hell-bent on it.

I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too.

I was never on the side of the teachers at school. Even though I put all the work into getting the main role in the end-of-year musical when I was 11, they didn't give it me, even though they knew I should have had it. That sort of drove me into am dram and getting the main part in another production. And I did.

I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life.

The human spirit is so resilient, and failure teaches you so much.

It's not easy to retire. No one teaches you how. I found that out when I tried it the first time. I'm not a quitter.

For me, failure is not a bad thing because it teaches you how to succeed.

When you fight for something, you fight the good fight. You go for it, you never stop. You get knocked down, and you get right back up. That's what we need to be teaching these kids. For that matter, even some adults.

I wasn't the brightest button in the class at school, but I enjoyed cooking and baking. I wasn't clever enough at Maths O-level to get onto the cookery teaching course I really wanted to do, so I did a catering course instead.

One of our film lecturers, one of the guys teaching the course, said to the departing film class, 'No one in this room is going to make it, as a filmmaker.' I have no idea why he said that.

I just had to plod along without having any teaching, which was a pity.

When I was seven and told my mom, 'I'm gonna be a writer,' she said, 'Oh, that's a terrible idea. You'll live in misery and die teaching other people's children badly.' My parents wanted the safer path for me, and I think they failed miserably achieving that.

The first rejection that 'Dexter' got, I was like, 'OK. This hasn't worked. Let's try something else. I'll go get a teaching job or something.'