Quotes About Persistence

I think professionally I admire people and the way they've handled their careers and being in the media. But the people that I used to inspire me and keep me going were my peers in Toronto - I would see the same girls going to audition after audition, and their resilience to do it again, and I found that inspiring.

In the mid-1970s, there was this huge boom of stand-up comedy throughout North America. I went to see a show at a club called Yuk-Yuks, in Toronto, and I was just fascinated. I ended up coming back for amateur hour on a Monday at midnight and got up there without any thought as to what might come of it.

The thing that has led me to the place that I am is that every moment in my life, I've been following my dream: following my dream to go to the University of Toronto, following my dream to get my Ph.D., following my dream to work in Hollywood.

Me getting cut from Toronto that first year, definitely helped with the ego. It was deflating. Some people either quit or some people get hungry.

Even though I'm very fortunate and grateful to have played Aladdin, there were still four, five casting directors who never gave me a shot in Toronto. They didn't give me the time of day. I never got to audition for them.

We called him Tortoise because he taught us.

I am (even after all the torture) amazed at British logic. Never in eight centuries have they succeeded in breaking the spirit of one man who refused to be broken. They have not dispirited, conquered, nor demoralised my people, nor will they ever.

I mean, we sit around and we go, you know, 'Torture doesn't work.' Well, it's been around for 5,000 years. Most stuff that doesn't work goes the way of the dodo pretty quick, like waterbeds and 8-tracks and things like that.

As with any large investment, it can be emotionally difficult to abandon a line of research when it isn't working out. But in science, if something isn't working, you have to toss it out and try something else.

You have to be able to toss the thing out. You can't fall in love with your characters, and you have to know when to fight - and when to quit.

In my view, the most important lesson we can learn from Dr. King is not what he said at the March on Washington but what he said and did after the march. In the years following the march, he did not play politics to see what crumbs a fundamentally corrupt system might toss to the beggars for justice.

Acting, taken to the highest level, requires a fierce, total focus of your time and energy at the cost of just about everything else.

So I guess I had, I think they tell me I had, about three years total of piano lessons, off and on.

My total year's income from working as hard as I possibly could from writing went from like $30 one year to about $70 the next year. And it made me realize that maybe you couldn't really pay the rent that way.

I have prayed to God that he give me the strength to survive each day and to face those times in my life that will be extremely painful. I have put my total faith in God, and he will take care of me.

The first seven years that I wrote fiction, I sent out stories and a novel and made a total of $25.

I've never pursued a role. I always hear stories about actors going after parts and I'm, like, 'How do they do that?' It seems so weird. It seems like a total myth or something.

Nobody can be whatever they want to be. No kid can do whatever they want to do. It's a total lie. But they have the right to try and do whatever they want to do. That's their right, to aim to do whatever they want to do.

I sit, I think, I make some drawings. As a designer, you cannot retire totally.

When I was a teenager, I did a lot of pull-ups and push-ups. Every night before bed, I'd do 150 - in sets of 30 or so. Looking back on it now, I'm not totally sure that's the best way to improve as a climber. But it did make me a lot better at doing pull-ups and push-ups.

When 'Totally Biased' was canceled, I thought my career was over - but apparently it wasn't.

Computers are really patient. They can sit there all day. It's a totally different situation dealing with humans. They can be tired or overly excited.

I don't ever see myself retiring totally from music, because I have a genuine love and passion for it.

I had a tryout when I was, like, 19 and totally not prepared. I was 170 pounds with homemade gear. At that point, I realized how far I had to go to even get looked at. Then, when I was 22 or 23, I was much more prepared, and that second tryout went way better.