Quotes About Ambition

I never thought I would sing or dance - ever, ever, ever. My idea was to be Laurence Olivier or Peter Lorre or some great classical actor. I thought I'd be a character actor.

I don't want my career to peter out fighting meaningless fights; I want to go against the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world.

At 14 I was the fastest runner in Denmark. I was nearly a professional goalkeeper. I could have been the rival of Peter Schmeichel.

What I find curious is that I ever became a writer at all. I grew up in the South Bronx, the land of poverty and petty hoodlums.

To be spiritual means you have cosmic ambitions. You want to know not just the whole creation but the Creator and the source of creation as well. To be material means you have petty ambitions of owning a house - or 10 houses - or a whole apartment building.

It's not that I was not getting offers but I don't want to do petty and insignificant roles again and again.

My big ambition was to be Richard Petty.

I am very competitive - with myself and everybody else. I'm petty, too.

I remember they used to tell me, they said, 'Khaled, you can't get a Rolls-Royce; you need to get one of them small ones.' So I went and bought a Phantom.

Nobody ever thinks that the work they're going to do could ever be bigger than the one they do before, especially if you're lucky enough like I had to have such a huge thing as 'Phantom' was.

I turned to my mom and said, 'I'm going to be a martial arts movie star.' She didn't believe me, and neither did my dad. They both thought I would grow out of it. That it was a phase. I decided then I was going to do it or die trying.

My career has been a roller coaster ride. And every actor experiences that phase.

I thought I wanted to be a lawyer and was going through this growth phase.

I would love to be in 'Downton Abbey.' That's the thing I thing many people would have a good laugh with me saying anything like that. I feel like that's the next phase of my career. To reprove to everyone that I can do things besides the crazy characters.

I'm in a 'I can do whatever' phase. I'm taking this '106 & Park' opportunity into full force. I'm really focused on doing my best with it. This is my 'Fresh Prince' moment. I want to be the black Ryan Seacrest of film, TV, and more.

I wanted to be a painter when I was a kid. And then, I had to make a living. I had a child when I was in high school, so I kind of had that work phase in my life.

I definitely went through a phase where I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was younger... But I certainly wasn't very good at it.

When I started, there was a phase where I wanted to be a cowboy star. I didn't want to do deep, serious parts.

There was a phase where nothing was going right, and the thought crossed my mind that what is going to happen. Since I had no Plan B, I was sure from the beginning that I love acting and this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, so I had to be ready to struggle.

'Phase' is a special song to me, and I wanted the video to make you feel like you are on a journey with me. My team and I shot this video three different times, and every time I got it back, I wanted to go a step further.

Canada has been phenomenal to myself, my brother, my sister, their kids, my parents. They came there. They worked very hard. They came with a great education, very good heads on their shoulders with the simple thought of going there with almost nothing and just saying, 'We're doing this to give our kids the best opportunity possible.'

My dad was phenomenal. Born in Mexico, lived poor, didn't graduate from college, and becomes head of a car company and then governor of a state. I can't imagine I would have ever thought about running for office had I not seen my dad do it.

My dad was an architect, and he wasn't a rich guy, but in our little world in Philadelphia, he was famous. He loved to see his picture in the paper. I wanted to be more famous than him.

I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I'm fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working with different people from different generations.