Quotes About Ambition

Ironically, if only because over the years I've known so many - from college deans to studio executives to European expats - who come to Los Angeles aspiring to nothing other than living in Topanga, I wound up there by accident.

When I first knew that I wanted to rap I was seven years old and I lost the talent show. It was like spoken word or something. My mom made me do it. It was a Langston Hughes poem. The girl that came on after me, she wound up winning. She was a singer.

Right before my dad died he was planning to go to New York City for the video music awards that he was nominated for, the MTV music awards. You couldn't tell him he wasn't going to go. It was going to happen. But he wound up having to check into the hospital there, and not too long later he died. But his spirit never gave up - his body did.

Attending Columbia had always been my dream, but the truth is, my decision not to go wound up opening the door to things that would have, in the past, seemed too big to even be worth dreaming about.

Whatever organization I wound up in, I was just going to work my way up from the bottom.

The Dawn Wall and the Fitz Traverse were super-satisfying climbs. But I will always be searching for the next thing - the need to accomplish and explore are just woven into the fabric of who I am.

There's so many cool things that happen, where you want to kind of sit back and smell the roses and say, 'Wow, this is awesome!' But then you're already thinking a mile ahead about what the next landmark is, what the next goal is.

I started out in 1989 doing open mic nights. The first 10 years, I was literally all about I'm going to be a star. I want leather pants, I want a kangaroo, I want to be on 'MTV Cribs,' I want to go to the mall with a pet monkey and I want everyone to go, 'Wow, that guy's huge, he's successful.'

When you have little girls bringing you your action figures for you to sign, it's like, 'Wow, things are happening, and dreams do come true.'

I was in college that first semester, and I was like, 'Wow, this isn't who I am. This isn't what I want to do.' I was like, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to go out and make something of myself, and I have no clue what that is.'

When I was in acting classes early on, there were so many people in these classes who were doing great work, and you'd just look at them and say, 'Wow, I hope to someday be like that.' And yet these people never worked. You never saw them.

'Dat $tick' was the first song I tried to be serious on. Then I thought, Wow, what if I really did this seriously? How dope would that be?'

I was a kid, 12 or something, when the Partridge Family was big on TV. I liked the curly cord running from the bass to the amps, which were real fancy. That cord looked so cool. I said, 'Wow! I gotta play something like that!'

Notts County were League Two and they had they great plans. Things were happening and I was like 'wow these guys are serious.' It was a mad season because we were flying private jets to game. It was all a farce and I had signed a five-year contract.

'Daydream' brought us to the top of the heap of the indie-college market and recognition by all of our peers; 'Daydream' kind of capped off everything we set out to do when we started as a band, in terms of, like, wow, wouldn't it be great to make a record that a lot of people liked and listened to?

Reba McEntire came through town when I lived in Texas. She had this amazing theatrical show with, like, 13 different wardrobe changes. I was eight and I was like, Wow, I wanna do that!

There is no number or level of success that would make me think, 'Wow, I didn't think that was possible.'

Until now, until I actually got into law class, I just never thought of it as being an interest for me, but it's really funny because now that I'm in law, I'm like 'Wow, I could be a lawyer.

I started doing some demos and got online and bought a refurbished laptop, bought a microphone off of eBay. A lot of folks said you can't really do it that way at a pro level, but I did some vocals that way, turned it into the label and they said, 'Wow, where did you record this? The vocals sound great!'

I remember watching 'A Streetcar Named Desire' when I was quite young, I was about 12, or 13, and I watched it, thinking, 'Wow. That is pretty cool. I'd like to do something like that.'

After I did 'Mr. Show,' I was basically just a writer for a while. I was really young, and I kinda was like, wow, I'm 27 and I was already on this iconic show, and now I can just coast. But no one likes coasting, because you have to fill your day with stuff.

For me personally, I just try to prove myself in my work. I'm just trying to get better at what I do, and hopefully that will impact women in music, and hopefully the girls in the crowd will see my up there as a bandleader and think, 'Wow, maybe I can do that one day.'

I was sitting on my mom's lap across from my father to see Kay Thompson at Ciro's. And I always remember this energy force, this woman flying around the room and singing these harmonies so everyone went, 'Wow!' So I thought, 'That's what I want to do.'

I thought, 'Wow, if we could have a career that was five or six years long, that would be fantastic.' And, of course, never even thinking it would still be something I'd be doing in 45 years.