Quotes About Ambition

the United States is structurally an imperial project, it's in our political DNA. We're always looking for a frontier to expand into, we can't back down, anyone who admits we're overmatched gets sidelined and booted out of office by an upstart who insists that we can never be defeated, only betrayed.

Amy Sullivan, age twenty-seven, assistant Human Resources manager at FlavrsMart Branch 322, Chickentown

People who soar are those who refuse to sit back and wish things would change.

others are accepted at a highly selective school but choose to attend a less selective college or university instead.

the title of this chapter, "Recognize that your own motivation, ambition, and talents will determine your success more than the college name on your diploma.

Recognize that your own motivation, ambition, and talents will determine your success more than the college name on your diploma."8

Maybe it's a stretch to blame a broader social pathology on hyper-competitive soccer parents. Still, there is not a huge downside to asking every once in a while, Why am I doing this? We will know for certain that my analysis is wrong when we see the following obituary: Bob Smith died yesterday at the age of 74. He finished life in 186th place.

I didn't come here to make friends.

I had always dreamed of being a professional escort but never thought that there was any real money in it.

I didn't really spend much time with anyone my own age during high school because I believed my true calling would be representing New Jersey in the U.S. Senate, and if that didn't work out, I could always fall back on becoming an Olympic pole vaulter.

His mind, never content with shallow satisfactions, crept to the brink of knowing. What kind of power was it if it would never be used?

Ghana and Nigeria resented each other and competed for supremacy in every sphere—politics, academia, sports, you name it.

When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.

There's nothing wrong with dreaming about accomplishing great things, as long as that desire isn't focused on one's own glory.

The biggest thing separating people from their artistic ambitions is not a lack of talent. It's the lack of a deadline . Give someone an enormous task, a supportive community, and a friendly-yet-firm due date, and miracles will happen.

My only explanation for our cheeky ambition is this: Being surrounded by pet-supply e-tailors worth more than IBM has a way of getting your sense of what's possible all out of whack. The old millennium was dying; a better one was on its way. We were in our mid-twenties, and we had no idea what we were doing. But we knew we loved books. And so we set out to write them.

Remember that person you wanted to be? There's still time.

Some are just businessmen.

Remember that person you wanted to be? There's still time." She wanted to believe that; she wanted to believe it almost desperately. She wanted to be different from what she was—to be anything but what she was. But every day that grew less and less likely. Life, it seemed to her in the back of the cab, was nothing but a narrowing of opportunities. It was a funnel.

Old age teaches you in a very unkind way that things won't necessarily get better. Not in this life. In fact, you can pretty much count on things degenerating. Being content is not a lack of ambition. It's being able to rest and relax and know that your worth doesn't come from what others think of you or even what you think of you.

Being content is not a lack of ambition. It's being able to rest and relax and know your worth doesn't come from what others think of you or even what you think of you.

It's okay to fail, it's not okay to quit.

I was sending off my plays almost like an 8-year-old would send letters to Santa Claus. So it was a bit of a miracle when the Blank Theatre Company actually called and selected a terrible little play that I wrote.

I don't think I'll be playing the Mirage or the Tropicana when I'm 40.