Quotes About Ambition

I don't want to disregard any of the struggles others faced, but mine were different. I also gave auditions that never materialised not necessarily because I'm an outsider, but things didn't work out at many levels.

I would have loved the opportunity to have gone to drama school, but it just didn't work out for me; there are always several paths, and there's a reason why I've been down this path.

There was a time when I thought, 'God, this whole football thing might not work out for me.'

My political science degree is always on the back-burner. I took my LSAT, so even if I want to take the LSAT again, I know what I'm getting into. I'll keep it on the back-burner. Who knows, maybe with my popularity, I can have a career in politics with a law degree. I think it'll work out either way.

A lot of people think, 'I'll give acting or poetry or filmmaking a try. And if it doesn't work out I'll go get a law degree, do something else that's more practical.' For me I went the reverse way. I lived the back-up plan.

You have all the ambition of winning a championship and competing in your hometown. For me, it didn't work out that way.

I was a quarterback in pee-wee football. I always wanted to be quarterback. They're the leaders, they make the calls. It didn't work out because I didn't have the arm. I also played wide receiver my senior year in high school.

I have a certain way of thinking where I see something, and I know that I want it and I make up my mind - and that's pretty much all there is to it. It was like, This is what I want to do, and I'm going, and everything's going to work out. I'm going to be an actress. There was no way around it.

In a way, I'm always trying to do something I'm not qualified to do. So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my basic mindset.

I always thought I'd buy my mother a house if I ever became successful - a big, beautiful house on the nicest street in town. It didn't exactly work out that way. I was still borrowing money from her in my 40s.

The first record I made when I was 17. Labels merged and plans didn't work out, but plans never work out as planned. But I never stopped making music. I never had a backup plan. I never thought, 'Maybe I should just write, or maybe I should...' I just kept going.

Going to America is the best prize, so fingers crossed it will work out on Broadway.

I'm going to try to do music for the rest of my life, but that's just trying. Maybe it's not going to work out. Who knows?

I believe that if you want to be president of the United States, you run for president. You don't run for president with some eject button in the cockpit that allows you to go on an exit ramp if it doesn't work out.

My family didn't have money, and I think it made me fearless. I'm willing to try everything and not be afraid because what's the worst that can be happen? It might not work out, but I can't be worse off than when I was a kid.

In my own experience, I plotted and planned my life when I was getting out of law school to know by what year I'd make it to the Supreme Court. That didn't work out the way I planned.

When I started acting, everyone told me to get a backup in case it didn't work out; if there was something else I could have done, I would have done it. Acting should never be your chosen path if you can help it.

Before 'Dilbert,' I tried to become a computer programmer. In the early days of computing, I bought this big, heavy, portable computer for my house. I spent two years nights and weekends trying to write games that I thought I would sell. Turns out I'm not that good a programmer, so that was two years that didn't work out.

You have to be determined, and be able to accept, 'No.' I've heard, 'No,' a thousand times, and I've heard, 'Yes,' a handful of times.

You go up for hundreds, thousands of roles, and you get told no, no, no, so many times.

There are thousands of directors in Hollywood.

'Success' is a seductive word. Thousands of books have been written on the subject. They promise money, freedom, leisure, and luxury.

I have a lot of musician friends. I worked in radio as a music director, and I know everybody hears about the George Straits and the Garth Brooks and the Kenny Chesneys and all that, but for every major star, there are thousands who didn't quite make it.

It's still incredibly hard. Not just honing my craft but kicking down doors, getting my work published. Early on, I could have wallpapered my house with all the rejection letters sent my way. I put thousands of hours and pages into four novels that never saw the light of day.