Quotes About Ambition

And really, wasn't this endless ruminating over my own likability in itself a thing only a woman would do? Did Bill—or Ted Cruz or Rand Paul—ever ponder their likability, or did they simply go after what they wanted? Did Bill ever stop to think about which of us was more qualified, did he question his own motives for entry into the race? The idea was laughable.

All things being equal, why not be married to a rich man? (Somewhere, Hannah thinks, there must be a needlepoint pillow asking this very question in a cleverer way.)

His ambitions exceed his talent.

Curtis Sittenfeld

If this was all I ever got, it would be the best thing that had ever happened to me, and if this was all I ever got, I'd never stop wanting more of it.

All the more reason for you to go

Everybody of my generation has the same memory. We were twelve or thirteen or we were twenty-one, for that matter, and we were going to be veterinarians or we were, like Ringo, going to own a hairdresser's parlor. We walked into the record store and saw the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. We thought together, 'Life can be other than it has been.

Mina thought to herself, watching, her momma was the kind of woman she wanted to be, wherever else she got to in her life.

If I was sure, I'd say. For your Momma, maybe. For all of us, maybe, but I don't think so. I think, maybe, it's reaching out for that school. Somehow. I'm not saying that's what you thought you were doing or what you even wanted to do. But it's how it turned out. And I'm sorry, the way it turned out. Because somebody's slapped your hand back good and hard. But I don't want you to stop reaching, just because it didn't come out the way it should have.

What kind of a world was it where in order to be on top you had to push others under — as if you were pushing heads down underwater — and hold them there until they drowned, and then you could be on top.

When we really want to go for something better, we shall smash the old. Until then, any sort of proposal, or making proposals, is no more than a tiresome game for self-important people.

The bitch-goddess, as she is called, of Success, roamed, snarling and protective, round the half-humble, half-defiant Michaelis' heels, and intimidated Clifford completely: for he wanted to prostitute himself to the bitchgoddess, Success also, if only she would have him.

Hold firmly to your aspirations; tenacity breeds tenacity as success breeds success.

But having more freedom she only became more profoundly aware of the big want. She wanted so many things. She wanted to read great, beautiful books, and be rich with them; she wanted to see beautiful things, and have the joy of them for ever; she wanted to know big, free people; and there remained always the want she could put no name to? It was so difficult. There were so many things, so much to meet and surpass. And one never knew where one was going.

And yet - and yet - one's kite will rise on the wind as far as ever one has string to let it go. It tugs and tugs and will go, and one is glad the further it goes, even if everybody else is nasty about it.

She had to live. It is useless to quarrel with one's bread and butter. And to expect a great deal out of life is puerile.

Learning was the only distinction to which she thought to aspire.

Si rese conto, ora, che la dea-cagna del successo, aveva due grandi appetiti: uno era la fame di adulazione, di lusinghe, di carezze e moine che le davano gli artisti e gli scrittori. Ma l'altro era più feroce, era fame di carne e di ossa. E la carne e le ossa per la dea-cagna del successo, erano forniti dagli uomini che facevano denaro nelle industrie.

Still he was ambitious. He had taken to writing stories; curious, very personal stories about people he had known. Clever, rather spiteful, and yet, in some mysterious way, meaningless. The observation was extraordinary and peculiar. But there was no touch, no actual contact. It was as if the whole thing took place in a vacuum. And since the field of life is largely an artificially-lighted stage today, the stories were curiously true to modern life, to the modern psychology, that is.

Because, after all, like so many modern men, he was finished almost before he had begun.

Money one always wanted.

Make money! Make it! Out of nowhere. Wring it out of the thin air! The last feat to be humanly proud of!

Clifford had never been primarily out for money, though he made it where he could, for money is the seal and stamp of success.

He's got _go_, anyhow.' Certainly, he's got go,' said Gudrun. 'In fact I've never seen a man that showed signs of so much. The unfortunate thing is, where does his _go_ go to, what becomes of it?