Quotes About Ambition

I've been working really hard in this business for a very long time and I've had my share of ups and downs - and to be honest, most of them have been downs. It's a motivation point.

Power is, in its nature, encroaching; and such is the human make that men who are vested with a share of it are generally inclined to take more than it was intended they should have.

I wanted to be a vet. I really thought that's what I wanted to do.

I think I always wanted to be an actor - sounds a bit boring, doesn't it? And I pretended once that I wanted to be a vet because one of the teachers asked me and saying you want to be an actor sounds a little bit silly. And I do still feel a bit silly saying it. You feel a bit fraudulent.

I wanted to be a vet, a nurse, a chef - I mean, anything but the music industry. But once I hit high school, the bug really bit me. You can't deny where you come from and what's in your genes, and music definitely was. I haven't looked back since.

I remember being a kid and wanting to be so many different things. There was even one point that I wanted to be a clarinet player, and I had never even touched a clarinet, in my life. And then, I wanted to be a chef. And then, I wanted to be a vet. It's hard to decide who you're gonna be, as weird as that sounds, because we all do it.

As a kid I wanted to be a vet; I wanted to be an architect. I was and still am such a little geek.

Besides a princess and a ballerina and a firefighter and a vet, I think I wanted to be an artist.

There should always be competition. You should never feel comfortable, no matter where you are at. If you are a 10-year veteran, you should not feel comfortable. For me, that kind of just drives me, that kind of unknown of what is going to happen. The unknown is kind of what drives me.

Obviously, I'm at the beginning of my career, contrary to what anyone else thinks. I'm 19 years old. In any other country, everywhere else, you're a prospect. And that's what I am right now in Europe. I'm a prospect. I'm not a seasoned veteran.

I don't care if you're a young lion, you're an old lion, you're a veteran, you're in the middle of the pack - I'm top dog. I'm the guy.

I was sure I wanted to grow up to be either a veterinarian or a writer. In fact, I worked for a vet during high school, doing everything from cleaning cages to assisting in surgery.

There was a point in my life where I either wanted to be an astronaut, an actor, a veterinarian, or a pirate. I just thought being in space would be really cool, but then you have to have 20/20 vision, which I don't have, so there.

When I was young, I'd fight everyone who insisted I'd be an actress. I'd say, 'No way. I'm going to be a veterinarian. I'm going to work at Wetzel's Pretzels.'

I wanted to be a veterinarian, but slipped up when I hit organic chemistry.

I think the expectation of me was that I'd grow up, get married, have a family, probably not even have a job outside the home. I had bold notions sometime in my childhood that I wanted to be veterinarian... I wasn't sure I'd ever do it.

I really wanted to be veterinarian, but I got a 410 on my math SATs.

When one's greatest 'world stage' ambition is a non-voting seat on the U.N. Security Council five years down the road, one would not want to say anything to hurt the feelings of the veto holders in Moscow or Beijing. We get it. But let's at least be honest about all this, please. Enough of the 'Canada is back' slogans already.

I was thrust, excitingly, via 'Elizabeth' and 'Shakespeare in Love,' into a position one can only dream of, but it was startling, too. I was offered a multitude of roles riding horses in flouncy shirts, and I just thought, 'Hang on, I've just done that. What next?'

If I were to try to break into the world of modern dance, after the first few rejections the logical response might be, practice even more. But after the 12,000th rejection, maybe I should realize this isn't a viable career option.

My body is not supportive of my career. My body has other plans for me. My body's plan is to slowly rot from the inside. By the time I'm ready to have kids, it's not going to be viable to do that.

I guess I considered myself just sort of a sketch comedian, you know? Actual screenwriting hadn't really occurred to me as a viable job - I didn't really know anything about it.

The joke I always make is I'm either running for reelection, running for Senate, running for governor, or running for my life. The latter is also a viable possibility.

As a kid, I liked to write, but I didn't think that was a viable career choice. My dream, actually, was to be a white girl rapper and join Salt-N-Pepa - which obviously was a much more viable career choice.