Quotes About Ambition

So I try not to have any actual expectations for myself for any level of success or failure.

It's not my goal to be a famous actor.

I think this kind of a big name to hold up when you're nine years old. It seemed goofy. I used to tell people I wanted to change the world and they used to think the kid's really weird.

The seductive comforts of success, though, can lull us into accepting the status quo.

All I can think about is how fucked up it would be for your life to end here, now. I mean I know that your life if fucked up no matter what now, forever. And I'm not dumb enough to think that I can undo that, that anyone can. But I can't wrap my mind around the notion of you not getting old, having kids, going to Juilliard, getting to play that cello in front of a huge audience, so that they can get the chills the way I do every time I see you pick up your bow, every time I see you smile at me.

Mia and I had been together for more than two years, and yes, it was a high school romance, but it was still the kind of romance where I thought we were trying to find a way to make it forever, the kind that, had we met five years later and had she not been some cello prodigy and had I not been in a band on the rise - or had our lives not been ripped apart by all this -I was pretty sure it would've been.

Forward momentum. That's my new motto. No regrets. And no going back.

And this is the truth. Because I may be only eighteen, but it already seems pretty obvious that the world is divided into two groups: the doers and the watchers. The people things happen to and the rest of us, who just sort of plod on with things. The Lulus and the Allysons. It never occurred to me that by pretending to be Lulu, I might slip into that other column, even for just a day.

Willem, I suspect deep down you know exactly why you're here, exactly what you want, but you're unwilling to the wanting, let alone the having. Because both of those propositions are terrifying.

I didn't give it much thought back then. I just wanted to get all the words straight and collect my A.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with just ten digits.

Go Big or Go Home

Adam strummed an unfamiliar melody. I asked him what he was playing. "I'm calling it 'My-Girlfriend's-Going-to-Julliard-Leaving-My-Punk-Heart-in-Shreds Blues.

Me, too," I said. And then we stopped talking for a while as Adam strummed an unfamiliar melody. I asked him what he was playing. "I'm calling it 'The Girlfriend's-Going-to-Juilliard-Leaving-My-Punk-Heart-in-Shreds Blues,' " he said, singing the title in an exaggeratedly twangy voice. Then he smiled that goofy shy smile that I felt like came from the truest part of him. "I'm kidding." "Good," I said.

I thought of what Mom sometimes said to me when I was feeling insecure: "Fake it till you make it.

we stopped talking for a while as Adam strummed an unfamiliar melody. I asked him what he was playing. "I'm calling it 'The Girlfriend's-Going-to-Juilliard-Leaving-My-Punk-Heart-in-Shreds Blues,'" he said,

Mom shot me a sympathetic grimace. "I don't know. But I do know that if you want to stay and be with him, I'd support that, though maybe I'm only saying that because I don't think you'd be able to turn down Juilliard. But I'd understand if you chose love, Adam love, over music love. Either way you win. And either way you lose. What can I tell you? Love's a bitch.

When you are bred to be white trash, you do what you can to avoid the family trap.

Show me your friends and I will show you your future

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?" (…) A sigh of longing. "To be honest, I wanted to be ruler of the entire world. Or the ruler's trophy wife.

Well," she said, getting more comfortable, "Here's what I've got so far. I'm going to college and getting a Ph.D. in being awesome. That's a thing, right? Everyone will call me Dr. Kitten and pay me megabucks to diagnose all their problems. Because, of course, I will have all the answers.

Are you living your parents' dream...or your own?

We must fight for what we want or it will be taken from us.

He wanted to be all-powerful in Scarlet's eyes. He wanted to be well able to provide for her. Hell, he might just buy her a palace of her own. Actually, no. He'd build the bitch with his bare hands. "Amazing.