Quotes About Ambition

Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.

My whole life I have just ran track and I have just continued and taken it to the next level.

I wanted to be a singer forever. But it's not really my cup of tea. Having the whole world know who you are.

I've always been interested in directing, writing, and producing, so when I went behind the scenes, it was like a whole new world that I got to experience.

If you never give up and you strive hard and focus on every move like a chess game, you will make it. I believe that wholeheartedly.

I wholeheartedly rejected anything remotely feminine but was not enthusiastic about anything masculine, either. I did not want to cook and have babies, and I did not want to be an engineer or a baseball player or a soldier or a politician or any of the myriad careers open mostly or solely to men. I wanted to be a poet.

There's a point where you're going after something so wholeheartedly that you start getting discouraged when there's no results or when no one's taking interest.

I went to school to learn to be a hairdresser. I worked at a wholesale florist, where I delivered to florists all over New Jersey. I'd come home and go out to work down at the Shore. The early jobs, I remember, were $5, $6 a night. And I lived in the projects right until the time I became successful.

My father made bridal dresses, which he sold wholesale, and always wanted me to join him. He looked upon what I did as precarious and frivolous - except that he loved it when my name was in the papers.

It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us - dreamers and indolent... It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich - these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.

There are many things which swallow up men's thoughts while they live, which they will think little of when they are dying. Hundreds are wholly absorbed in political schemes and seem to care for nothing but the advancement of their own party. Myriads are buried in business and money matters and seem to neglect everything else but this world.

I love that, even after jumping through hoops forever, I can still get that buzz, that hook. That's very healthy, but it's bittersweet, too, because if you don't get the part, you have to deal with the disappointment. I don't think I'll ever negotiate those peaks and troughs wholly healthily.

I've known ambitious people with no aptitude for the thing they did. Most of whom, rather terrifyingly, tended to succeed.

I see myself as a player for whom there are no limits.

As I've told my three daughters, all of whom I've at one time encouraged to go into macro trading, any man or woman can do anything to which they set their heart and mind.

What is high birth to him to whom high birth has never been the theme of his contemplation? What is a throne to him who has never dreamed of a throne?

I think of myself as an Olympian. I have had a dream since I was a very small child. And because I have parents without whom I couldn't have realised that dream.

My friends in college, several of whom are still my closest companions, would tell you that I was almost obsessed with becoming - fixated on creating - the future that I envisioned for myself: one of expanding to know my fullest self, which I have in no way achieved.

Of course the lower classes have always felt downtrodden and aspired to a better life. But there is this theory that people respond to a class structure in England - there was a time when people knew who they were and knew whom they served and as long as management wasn't abusive, it was a good life for people.

I didn't ever intend to or want to be an actor. I'm not one of those people of whom they say, 'If you can't live without it, that's the only reason you should be an actor.' It was kind of a sideline that became my whole life.

After a couple of attempts at making shorts, I decided to make a feature film with a friend, Tom Hall, whom I've worked with ever since.

I think there will be a 200-story skyscraper someday. However, it will require a developer who will not think in conventional terms and for whom economic restraints won't apply.

Some people are instantly brilliant. The Kenneth Branaghs of this world are ready-formed actors at 23 - he has used his success in lots of different ways - but there are people out there for whom acting is: 'Ooh, I can get on the telly and be famous.'

Intellects whose desires have outstripped their understanding.