Quotes About Ambition

My first film was a big dud at the box office, and my second film did decently. I used to wonder how it would feel to have a hit film. I thought I'd be larger than life, but I'm not feeling anything I imagined. It's a completely different experience.

When I started training to fight, it was more out of boredom than anything. I was looking for more things to do. I started with boxing, and my coaches told me I had a lot of potential and that I should consider making it a career. I was like, 'Whatever.' I was just 15 at the time, and I never imagined something like that.

To be a director, you have to think you're the best. Ever since I went to film school, I imagined that you have to think deep down that you want to be Martin Scorsese or you want to be P.T. Anderson. Like, am I as good as those guys? Absolutely not. I feel like I keep learning, and I feel like I keep getting better.

I never imagined I'd make it in the Football League.

But I never imagined that I could ever have a career in music. I always thought it was like a mafia, that you had to sell your soul and know the right people and be in the right place.

I grew up so poor and now I have an opportunity to provide for my family in a way that I never imagined. I take that in consideration and try to exploit every single opportunity because when it's over it's over, there are no redos.

I don't think my parents imagined I'd represent England when they first drove me to mini-rugby at Maidenhead. I was only five but mum lied about my age to get me out of the house.

I never even imagined having my own shoe.

I've tired of looking into the future, imagining all the things I want to have.

Becoming Miss America was one of those things. It immediately changed what I thought I was going to do with the rest of my life.

I remember immediately - immediately - feeling like, 'I don't want to play 'We Are Young' when I'm 35. I don't want to be defined by this.'

My dad is a Ghanaian immigrant, and he wanted a son who was an engineer.

One of the hard things coming from an immigrant family - or any family that doesn't believe in the arts - is that you have to disappoint your parents. That's hard for people to do if you're a good kid.

As a young black immigrant at an inner-city school, I saw how poverty of ambition left many from disadvantaged backgrounds on the scrap-heap.

I'm still the community college kid with immigrant parents.

When you are in America, at least for me, as an immigrant, I try to be as Americanized as I could. I just want to be an actor, I don't just want to be an Asian actor necessarily.

My parents never understood why I didn't want to be a doctor or lawyer. They're Cuban immigrants who wanted to give their children the American dream, and, to them, that was more of what 'the dream' entailed.

Immigrants have historically been an entrepreneurial bunch.

The thing about immigrants is the people who come to this country with that kind of drive? They are risk-takers. And we need risk-takers who want to improve their lives, create jobs and do those things that add to the dynamism of our economy.

I always thought I'd become an immigration lawyer.

I believe in a big Australia. I am an advocate for an ambitious immigration program.

I am not immortal. Faustus and I are the also-ran.

I think in some ways it's good to have at least one thing for which you could be really immortal, you know?

I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. If your name is in the Library of Congress, you're immortal.