Quotes About Ambition

Madonna had to break through; I knew she was going to make it big, because I could see how ambitious she was, in a very genuine and sweet way.

Listen, I'm a sweet guy. I'm just intense at work. I have nothing but the end result in mind. My entire career has been like that.

It takes a lot of courage, when everyone is asking you what you want to do, if you say that you want to be a musician or an actor; people can be very condescending and say, 'Oh, that's so sweet, good luck with that!' It can be very frustrating.

When I played for the Basel youth team, I also worked in a sweet shop.

I have a lot to show as an actor, and I will take my own sweet time for that.

It wasn't supposed to work - being a new artist, a female artist, an artist on an independent. That's what made it so much sweeter when we hit No. 1.

I had a high school sweetheart that was my first. We were together all through high school. I had just broken up with him because I didn't think I was good enough. He wanted to be an anesthesiologist. I wanted to be an entertainer. His life was more planned out, and mine wasn't.

At school, when everyone would sell sweets and chocolate, I'd always take it that step further. I'd hustle as hard as I could to get the new Air Forces, to go and chill with the posh kids and the white girls who were around my area.

Growing up, my imagined life as a musician was something along the lines of me lounging in a Learjet en route to a swelling outdoor amphitheatre on a dazzling summer's eve.

Maybe it goes away, but this is the way I've chosen to live: I want to go down or rise up as an artist. I don't want to get swept up in lipstick or whatever the hell.

I'll go for broke. Swim faster. It's not going to be easy - this whole thing was never going to be easy.

In this business you either sink or swim or you don't.

After the 2013 World Championships, I had three goals for the Olympics: to swim 3:56 or better in the 400-meter freestyle, break 8:05 in the 800, and win gold in the 200. I achieved all of those, and soon, it will be time to set some new goals.

Whatever other people expect me to do, whatever they're comparing me to, I don't care. I'm just trying to swim fast.

And as a woman, you need to take risks. Don't stay too long in your own swim lane.

I live close to Hampstead Heath, so when I do have spare time, I like to raise my white blood cell count with a swim in the men's pond. It's an ambition of mine to swim in the ponds on every day of the year.

I hope I give girls an opportunity to realize that they can swim and go to school at the same time. It's not to be given up once they get out of high school. They can continue doing it for the rest of their lives.

I thought I could, and thought I would, swim a lot quicker - much quicker.

I always wanted to swim the Channel, which is insane.

After watching the Athens Paralympics in 2004, I looked at the swimmers and thought, that's cool. I want to do that.

I'm just a simple guy swimming in a sea of sharks.

I want to continue the sport of swimming. I'm not going to give up until I think it's reached where I want it to go.

If I was satisfied I wouldn't keep swimming.

I grew up in Florida, so you start swimming at the age of 1, really. By 10, I was competitive swimming, and by 12, I had aspirations to be the best in the world.