Quotes About Ambition

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn't think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

As a precocious teen I dreamed of being Graham Greene. Well, as it turned out, I never wrote a great novel, sadly, and I never converted to Catholicism, happily, but I did do one thing he did. That is, in middle age I moved to a seaside town and got into a right barney with the local powers-that-be.

From the moment I wrote 'Leaf Storm' I realized I wanted to be a writer and that nobody could stop me and that the only thing left for me to do was to try to be the best writer in the world.

As soon as I finished the first book, I wrote a second, which I hope to sell this year, and I have just about finished the third book in the series. Two more are already outlined. I'm in this for the long haul.

I was 19 when I wrote 'Dreams,' and that would have been when it started to happen. The band got signed, and I was probably beginning to see different things besides my small town of Ballybricken.

In 1987, I wrote a goal sheet. I didn't want to waste my life. I'd dropped out of college, and there was a lot of pressure from my parents. I decided, 'If you're going to do this, you're going to become the best in the world at this.'

It was early on in 1965 when I wrote some of my first poems. I sent a poem to 'Harper's' magazine because they paid a dollar a line. I had an eighteen-line poem, and just as I was putting it into the envelope, I stopped and decided to make it a thirty-six-line poem. It seemed like the poem came back the next day: no letter, nothing.

My theory is that I decided to be a writer when I was about seven, but of course it is not as simple as that. Like most writers, I had to work at other things to earn a living and wrote mainly in the evenings, often very late at night, for many years.

I wrote that letter, and the one to Nixon. And I wrote more letters, and I thought it might be a magazine article. At that time I sent it to Esquire and Playboy, but anyway, I kept writing, and all of sudden I had enough and thought, well maybe it is a book.

And it was out in the theaters in two weeks. This is not, 'We're going to develop twenty-five and maybe one's going to get made,' so the first three things I wrote got up on the screen and, good, bad or indifferent, I got to see them on their feet.

The first comedy screenplay that I wrote was Animal House and I always thought I could and should be a director but no one was about to give me that opportunity on Animal House.

I started writing seriously when I was 18, wrote my first novel when I was 22, and I've never stopped writing since.

I wrote speculative fiction because I loved to read it, and thought I could do better than some of the people who were getting published.

The bands that wrote the big, heroic rock songs - I really wanted to make a record like that.

I'm for big challenges and can face anybody, but I know they have legends in 'WWE '12,' so I'd love to see myself against Andre the Giant.

I think a lot of people are excited that WWE was willing to give me a chance, and they want to see how far I can go with it.

Ever since I was a child I always wanted to be WWE Champion. I've been in love with sports-entertainment for my entire life, and I always wanted to do that.

I didn't grow up dreaming of being the next WWE superstar, to be honest. But I think that it doesn't matter how old you are. When you see something you like, you want to pursue it.

Nobody thought Finn Balor would be in the WWE. Here I am.

I came to WWE to be on 'WrestleMania' and to be in a 'WrestleMania' main event.

I wasn't featured in NXT. I never had a TakeOver match. I never held a title. I wasn't a featured athlete. I knew, going in to SmackDown Live, I had to kick down the door and take every opportunity for what it was, and sometimes in WWE - and in life - those opportunities don't come back.

I really don't feel like just going to WWE is the absolute end-all, be-all in wrestling.

I didn't want to walk into WWE and be someone who just does bikini matches and played second fiddle to the guys. I wanted to stand out, make people excited to see women's wrestling, and show them we can be better than the men.

It was my dream to become a WWE Diva.