Quotes About Ambition

I'll write three operas - one for Verdi, one for Puccini, and one for Bellini.

I wanted a garret hideaway to write in like Jo March in 'Little Women.'

I realize that I had always in my heart of hearts planned to write a biography of Marie Antoinette.

We are all shaped by where we grow up, though that shaping takes different forms. I don't think there's any doubt that coming of age in Winnipeg both opened my eyes and made me hungry - if I can subvert all claims to be a real writer by mixing metaphors like that.

I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day, rather than a sex symbol.

Whatever you do, make sure you want to write more than you want to be a writer. Make sure you want to act more than you want to be an actor. That is what will sustain you.

In my next incarnation, I want to be a writer.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

I hope to build a reputation as a science-fiction writer. That's the pitch. We'll see.

I had all the usual ambition growing up. I wanted to be a writer, a musician, a hockey player. I wanted to do something that wasn't nine to five. Acting was the first thing I tried that clicked.

I wanted to be a soccer player, and I became the best of the best, the number one, better than Maradona, better than Pele, and even better than Messi - but only at night, nighttime, during my dreams. When I wake up, I realized that I have wooden legs and that I'm doomed to be a writer.

If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer.

I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.

I went to Goucher College in Maryland for the best possible reasons - to learn - but then I dropped out at 19 for the best possible reasons - to become a writer.

In order for a narrative to work, the primary character should have a concrete desire - a need that drives her story - and the story's writer should make this goal known to the reader pretty early in the narrative.

My favorite literary heroine is Jo March. It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.

I always wanted to be some kind of writer or newspaper reporter. But after college... I did other things.

I was a math whiz who stunk at English, so of course I wanted to be a writer more than anything in the world. I performed impromptu plays for my grandmother's sewing circle but forced my little sister to ask for ketchup at McDonald's.

I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer.

I dreamt of being a writer once I started to read. I started to write 'Bonjour Tristesse' in bistros around the Sorbonne. I finished it, I sent it to editors. It was accepted.

Having been an actor and a writer for so long - 20 years or so - I felt that it would be daft to go to one's grave without having directed. It's a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.

If I really considered myself a writer, I wouldn't be writing screenplays. I'd be writing novels.

A lot of people, I think, harbor some kind of ambition to write a novel - they say, 'One day I'm going to write a novel,' and they maybe find the first three pages quite easy, and then they hit a kind of brick wall, and they think that that brick wall means that they're not a writer.

I've had menial jobs, and 'professional writer' isn't one of them.