Quotes About Ambition

Her father was lying back in his chair, lazy and powerful, his eyes as fierce as his dæmon's. She didn't love him, she couldn't trust him, but she had to admire him, and the extravagant luxury he'd assembled in this desolate wasteland, and the power of his ambition.

In Geneva, Olivier Bonneville was becoming frustrated.

with ambitious aim against the throne and monarchy of God rais'd impious war in Heav'n and battel proud … • JOHN MILTON •

It was worth living a difficult life, if you had a great aim like that.

this man who had so much that he wanted even more.

I'll get them there, she kept saying to herself. I come here to get 'em and I'll bloody get 'em.

And Lord Asriel has a way special to himself of bringing about what he wants, he just has to call for something and—

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

Oh, to be a center fielder, a center fielder- and nothing more

a father for whom everything is an unshakable duty, for whom there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between, a father whose compound of ambitions, biases, and beliefs is so unruffled by careful thinking that he isn't as easy to escape from as he seems. Limited men with limitless energy; men quick to be friendly and quick to be fed up; men for whom the most serious thing in life is to keep going despite everything. And we were their sons. It was our job to love them.

If anybody asks, 'Can you do this job? Can you handle it?' you tell 'em 'Absolutely.' By the time they find out that you can't, you'll have already learned, and the job'll be yours. And who knows, it might just turn out to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

To become a new being. To bifurcate. The drama that underlies America's story, the high drama that is upping and leaving-and the energy and cruelty that rapturous drive demands." —p. 342

But to wish oneself into another's glory, as boy or as man, is an impossibility, untenable on psychological grounds if you are not a writer, and on aesthetic grounds if you are.

you will make mistakes on a scale you can't even dream of now—because there is no other way to reach the end.

Gone were the days when Zuckerman had only to worry about Zuckerman making money: henceforth he would have to worry about his money making money.

No one with seven books in New York City settles for one piece of ass. That's what you get for a couplet.

You don't want to be a pauper's wife, though it is all right to be a pauper's girlfriend, especially when you are able, with the pauper's encouragement, to fuck everybody else on the side.

The American daydream, what made Us great: make a concession, take a stand.

Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

May all your dreams come true, save one.

No man should ever completely realize his dreams. What else would there then be to live for?

Every dictator in history, from Philip of Macedon to the Tyrant of Asia, claimed to be—and probably was, in his beginnings—motivated solely by benevolence.

If artists, writers and musicians were not just a little delusional, they would all have office jobs.

Oh damn and fuck show business and all its ways.