Quotes About Ambition

Somos una nación de ingenieros que aspiran a ser reconocidos.

My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition. I mock this skull.

The great minds of the century. So absolutely convinced they're on the road to somewhere.

Finally it doesn't matter whether you're a cork on the water or a man chasing his own grail.

If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

That girl,' tutted Alsana as her front door slammed, 'swallowed an encyclopedia and a gutter at the same time.

Desire is never final, desire is imprecise and impractical [...]

New York just expects so much from a girl—acts like it can't stand even the idea of a wasted talent or opportunity. . . . Rome says: enjoy me. London: survive me. New York: gimme all you got. What a thrilling proposition! The chance to be "all that you might be." Such a thrill—until it becomes a burden.

the feeling I had of moving into somebody else's broken ambition.

You don't come to live here unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn't a strong aspect of your personality. 'A reality shaped around your own desires' — there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

Cigarettes took them to medals, which took them to guns, which took them to radios, which took them to jeeps. By midnight, Samad had won three jeeps, seven guns, fourteen medals, the land attached to Gozan's sister's house, and an IOU for four horses, three chickens and a duck.

You don't come to live here [New York City] unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn't a strong aspect of your personality. 'A reality shaped around your own desires' — there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

I can't rid myself of the need to do "something," to make "something," to feel that this new expanse of time hasn't been "wasted.

It is easy to say they make being young look like hard work, but wasn't it always hard work, even if the medium of its difficultly was different? At least they are making a project of their lives, a measurable project that can be liked or commented upon.

Brett had proved once again that whenever a young Brett is born in these United States, born with a dream, that dream can truly come true. Yes, sir, if your baby Brett really puts his mind to it -- if he believes, if he has faith, if he is a he, and if he is called Brett -- he can do whatever it is he puts his mind to, and that goes double for all you Troys, Kips, Tripps, Bucks and Chads.

He wanted to be in the world and take what came with it, endings local and universal, full stops, periods, looks of injured disappointment and the everyday war. He liked the everyday war. He was taking that with fries. To go.

for any daughter of hers was to do more than just survive—as my mother had—she was to thrive, learning many unnecessary skills, like tap dancing.

I arise full of eagerness and energy, knowing well what achievement lies ahead of me.

If you want fame or wealth or wolves, go out and hunt for them.

You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great

If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.

Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success.

She didn't really believe in the possibility of making good things happen with the sheer strength of your desire for them. If anything, it seemed to her, the opposite was true. The moment you wanted anything too fervently, the moment you yearned, the universe gazed with disgust upon your mewling and withheld. To get things, you had to be careless about them, the way that Rosa was.