Quotes About Persistence

There are so few jobs for comedians on networks, that taxi TV and elevator TV and all this stuff are what I and every other comedian now are gunning for.

Personally, I would really like the entire production staff of Taxi Driver,' and all the characters including prosecutor Kang Ha Na, to come back together and continue the stories of Rainbow Taxi.

If you can beat Phil Taylor in the longer format you can beat anyone.

Sometimes when I'm stuck, I really do need that cup of tea, or that chocolate, or a break, or a walk, but in most cases what I actually need to do is make myself keep writing until it flows again.

We often say that the biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee to fail intelligently... to experiment over and over again and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.

I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song.

I teach in M.F.A. programs now, and I think that's a great way to become a novelist, but I mourn that Pete Dexter and Joan Didion's route is maybe less likely because there are fewer of those jobs. I always liken it to playing piano in some great dive jazz bar. You didn't pick the songs, you played what people asked for, but you got your chops.

You start where you can get an opportunity, you take everything that you can do to gain entrance. You do the little work and you try to find people who can teach you.

Nobody should teach anywhere for 25 years, but I did.

Consistency is always the best teacher.

It's good to have a good teacher, but you always need a pretty good student.

If you lock me in the room with a piano teacher for a year I might be able to knock out a rendition of 'Roll Out The Barrel,' but will I ever be a concert pianist? No.

Aim to write for an hour per day. I used to be a teacher, and an hour a day before school was all it took for me to write my first book. Don't get discouraged if a holiday or illness interrupts your writing habit. Just start it up again.

I dont dream that much, but for a long time I had a recurring dream which wasnt funny at all. I was in a physics exam, and was asked a question by a teacher which I constantly got wrong.

My painting teacher in high school used to say, 'I can't paint like I want to, but through practice I'll get better.' But I don't think that's true. I think sometimes you just can't paint.

My teachers probably tried to get me interested in other things at school, but I was very young when I decided that I wanted to act. By the time I was 12, I was hell-bent on it.

I would argue that education, actual learning - it is hard work. It's very personal. Your parents don't teach you anything. Your teachers don't teach you anything. The government doesn't teach you anything. You read it. You don't understand it; you read it again. You break a pencil and read it again.

Some of my first teachers were incredibly tough. You could never sing more than three words without being stopped and having to do it over 20 times. I loved that - that sort of process of dissecting and trying to figure out and master this incredibly mysterious instrument.

I'm getting better and better each year that I'm playing golf on the world stage, and finishing runner-up only teaches you how to continue being patient - something that is key to our game.

It's not easy to retire. No one teaches you how. I found that out when I tried it the first time. I'm not a quitter.

When you fight for something, you fight the good fight. You go for it, you never stop. You get knocked down, and you get right back up. That's what we need to be teaching these kids. For that matter, even some adults.

But it is a hard, it's a hard profession teaching acting.

Teaching, I find, is not the most amusing thing on earth; in fact, with a stupid lump for a Pupil, it is about the most irksome.

It's been a long road. A humble Dearborn beginning. Secretary mom, dad teaching handicapped children. Working for what they had. Eventually, I moved to L.A. but, not good for me, I felt rejected. So I stopped acting and, needing to feel good inside, became a chef.