Quotes About Ambition

I never was what I should be.

I can't make out what you're up to . . . You strike me as having mysterious purposes — vast designs.

the high brutality of good intentions ...

It was all there, in short - it was what he wanted: it was Tremont Street, it was France, it was Lambinet. Moreover, he was freely walking about in it.

For Isabel, however, there was of course as of yet no thought of getting out, but only of advancing.

She longed for opportunities, but these were not the opportunities she meant.

The world lay before her—she could do whatever she chose. There was a deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice was tolerably discreet […].

I don't see what harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don't want to begin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do.

He goes very far, but it's quite possible he doesn't go far enough.

Do you know I sometimes think that I'm a man of genius, half finished? The genius has been left out, the faculty of expression is wanting; but the need for expression remains, and I spend my days groping for the latch of a closed door.

We may sometimes point out a road we are unable to follow.

She wants to be magnificent. She is, said the Colonel almost cynically. She wants--his wife now had it fast to be thoroughly superior, and she's capable of that. Of wanting to? Of carrying out her idea. And what IS her idea? To see Maggie through. Bob Assingham wondered. Through what? Through everything. She KNOWS the Prince.

BOOK ELEVENTH

Well, intensity with ignorance—what do you want worse?

I believe those that are on top the heap are better than those that are under it, that they mean to stay here, and that if they are not a pack of poltroons they will.

Surely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.

One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.

My hunger and curiosity drive me forward in all directions at once.

When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.

America is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a social liability. A corn-fed hog enjoys a better life than a creative writer, painter or musician. To be a rabbit is better still.

Over there you think of nothing but becoming President of the United States some day. Potentially every man is Presidential timber. Here it's different. Here every man is potentially a zero. If you become something or somebody it is an accident, a miracle.

By choosing to live above the ordinary level we create extraordinary problems for ourselves.

Unless the nightmare is strong enough to wake you up you go right on retreating, and either you end up on a bench or you end up as vice-president. It's all one and the same, a bloody fucking mess, a farce, a fiasco from start to finish.

Build your cities proud and high. Lay your sewers. Span your rivers. Work feverishly. Sleep dreamlessly. Sing madly, like the bulbul. Underneath, below the deepest foundations, there lives another race of men. They are dark, sombre, passionate. They muscle into the bowels of the earth. They wait with a patience which is terrifying. They are the scavengers. They emerge when everything topples into dust.