Quotes About Ambition

I'm never happy with anything I've done! If you sat me down and played everything I've ever recorded, I'd just sit there going, 'No... that could be better.'

I had a dream, as young people have quite idealistic dreams and goals, of, 'I'm going to go to Los Angeles, and I'm going to become a star!' I did get this huge record deal, and I recorded this music under Xavier. That didn't really work out.

I'm a creative person, and I've got a lot of ideas. People probably thought that my mentality was quick fame because I made 'Rack City' and it blew up fast, but I have over 1,000 songs recorded.

I recorded my first song when I was 13, 14 years old, and I've been running with it ever since.

I wanted to be the best guitar player in the world. And then my dad got me a portable recorder, so I started writing my own music.

When I broke 20, I said to myself, 'I will give concerts until I'm approximately 30.' And I made it a year and a half late, but, nevertheless, that's what I did. When I broke 30, I said, 'I think I should be recording until I'm about 50.'

I dreamed of recording a guitar album since I started playing, but I just never felt ready. I never felt like I was the player that I wanted to be. But I had this epiphany: you're never going to feel ready.

I want a hit. I don't think anybody spends 12 months writing and recording an album, making something cool, and says, 'Great, I hope this doesn't sell.' I don't understand that mind-set. I want hits: a big bunch of them.

When I was in seventh grade, I asked my parents for a mobile recording system for Christmas, and I got it. I didn't come out of my room for years after that. I'd get invited to the movies and I'd say, 'I'm gonna finish a couple of demos.'

By the age of 17, for me, we had got an recording contract, and, boom, I was gone.

I keep recording and recording, but they always stay on the rack and never get out there.

Dre's from Compton, I'm from Brooklyn, and we both wanted to make a better life for ourselves, right? And we both - somehow, we're both recording engineers, that's how we got our break.

I went to college to find myself. That's where I really realized I wanted to be a recording artist and started on the process of figuring out how to do that.

I always thought that I would have a recording career.

Piper took me one step further in that it got my first real recording contract but the band just didn't quite mature. It didn't break things open, but it got me to the door.

I bought some equipment and then I started recording real heavy, in my room, when I was like 16.

I'll probably have to open a recording studio at some point because I won't be able to pay the bills.

We never got anything out of the recordings. I'm still as broke as I was when I was with the Mothers.

I think sometimes I guess you see records, say you want to get there and use that as motivation. In a way, it's kind of cool if there is a possibility to rewrite history and be up there with the greats of Olympic history.

Too many times I've heard records from bands who were obviously, like, 'Well, we're at least gonna do half as well as we did on our last record. At least we can count on that.' You really have to keep that initial hunger that made some of your first best songs your first best songs. You have to keep that fire in the belly.

We're not making records for the fun of it; we're in it to make money.

I have more perspective now, and am happier now. It's not that I don't want success, but I now know I can have success at a lower level and make much more money doing it by myself. I make $6 or $7 bucks a record vs. nothing off those other records.

Everybody gets to a stage when it's time to move on. I was bored, and the band wasn't going anywhere, so I left. I did a couple of shows on Broadway and some other things. I was busy. I just wasn't making records.

I do not chase after the records.