Quotes About Ambition

Well I guess the plan was to write poetry and publish books and make a living from writing poetry. That was a pretty ambitious plan I guess.

That and the fact that I knew that nobody was going to publish my work at Dark Horse or DC or anywhere.

Pan me, don't give me the part, publish everybody's book but this one and I will still make it!

I started out as a novelist and wrote several novels before deciding to publish one, and I fully intend to go back to the form.

It took a while for anyone to want to publish 'To Repel Ghosts.' I thought people would want to publish a three-hundred-and-fifty-page book about a dead painter, but they didn't.

I didn't get anything published until I was thirty-three, and yet I'd written five novels and six or seven plays. The plays, I should point out, were dreadful.

I was always ambitious - not to make money: to be published.

I have always been driven; I've always wanted to be published, and I wanted to make that happen, so I worked very hard. 'Perfectionist' would be a word to describe me.

If Truman hadn't published 'Answered Prayers' in parts, he'd have had the drive to finish it. The peacocks took it away from him.

The hard fact is that not everyone does get published.

Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen.

I'd never been published when I was young.

I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself.

Not being published would be great. When I say that to other writers they look at me as if I'm totally insane.

I was directed because I knew I wanted to be a novelist, but I didn't have a very good job or a way of getting published. I found those years to be among the most difficult of my life.

If I hadn't been able to get my first book published, I am not sure what I would have done.

A whole bunch of agents and editors looked at my stories, and they all said, in effect, 'You're a pretty good writer and you should probably get these published; when you grow up and write a novel, get in touch.'

I never thought my ideas would actually get published.

I'd go to a bookstore, and I'd flip through flap copy, and I'd think, 'If this gal can get published, I can get published.'

I was very naive, and I thought it was just a matter of writing my first book and sending it in, and for the rest of my life I would be writing books and collecting royalties. Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published.

The story wrote quickly. I called it 'Where You're From,' and I sent it out, as I had numerous other stories over the years. Except this time I got a letter back saying that it would be published. Someone out there had liked the story. I was thirty-one years old.

If, after five years, I hadn't had anything published, I was just going to forget it and go back to TV full-time until I retired or they put me out to pasture.

I always assumed I could never make a living out of literary fiction, and I was right. When I did try, it took four years before being published.

I didn't get one word published until I was well into my 30s. But I always tried.