Quotes About Ambition

It's not like I had big dreams to go to California and become an actor. I loved doing my shows at school and community theater, and I probably would have settled in New York because it was closer. I was going to go to NYU.

To become a classical ballerina, you have to move to New York when you're 12 or 11 and that becomes your life. I just wanted to be good in my company in Charleston and I wanted it to always be part of my life.

Investment banks started recruiting at Harvard back in the day, and they'd fly me down to New York City and I was so poor so I would take advantage of the free flight, the per diem, the hotel. And then I would go audition for stuff.

New York is where you go to catch a big fish.

I moved to New York to pursue music.

I first arrived in New York in 1979. I was 19 and I was going to University in Houston, Texas, and I decided that I knew what I wanted to do and it was time to go and do it. I literally ran away from college.

Places like New York are just too intense, too much about money, too much about ambition; it's all too superficial for me.

I've lived in New York City all my life. I love New York City; I've never moved from New York City. Have I ever thought about moving out of New York? Yeah, sure. I need about $10 million to do it right, though.

I'm a New Yorker; I've paid my dues.

I've always essentially been a New Yorker.

I think that anyone who likes writing views 'The New Yorker' as the, you know, pinnacle of the publishing world. If you get 50 words published in 'The New Yorker,' it's more important than 50 articles in other places. So, would I love to one day write for them? I guess. But that's not my sole ambition.

New York is a place that can grind you down and spit you out. A true New Yorker doesn't get ground down - he gets polished.

I always knew I was a writer. And I always thought to myself, 'Well, why not me?' Someone has to be on the best-seller list, 'Why not me?' Someone has to write for the 'New Yorker,' 'Why not me?' And I didn't really get much positive reinforcement as a kid, so I thought, 'Well let me show you what I can do.'

I have no credentials. I have no money. I literally come from a poor place. I was a servant. I dropped out of college. The next thing you know I'm writing for the 'New Yorker,' I have this sort of life, and it must seem annoying to people.

I wanted to be a literary writer, so I wrote story after story and sent them to 'The New Yorker.'

I started out a die-hard New Yorker but really grew to love working in Los Angeles. Even though I originally wanted to do theater, TV presented more opportunities for me, which led me out west.

I'm a New Yorker, and I'm a fighter.

When I was about 14, in about 1984, I decided to become a great poet. Faber & Faber was going to publish me, and when Ted Hughes read my first anthology he would invite me to Yorkshire for meat pies and mentorship.

Every young cricketer from our county dreams of playing for Yorkshire and going on to represent England.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.

When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go.