Quotes About Persistence

In group lesson number six I think we learned how to turn backwards and then just kind of wiggle. That wasn't really skating backward, but I guess I was going in the right direction.

The biggest challenge for me has been in coping with my perfectionism. I have a stiflingly hard time moving forward in a project if it's not 'just right' all along the way. The trap I so easily fall into is rewriting and rewriting the same scenes over and over to make them perfect, instead of continuing on into the wild unknown of the story.

I've been the teenage success, I've been homeless and driving around in my car and not knowing where to eat. You just want to keep working and learning, and I was doing that. If I hadn't done 'Wild Bill,' I'm sure I would have acted in something else.

You keep pitching. Most of the pitches run wild. A few are caught.

You have to, in a way, just get your head down and do the work and not expect every day to bring riches and not expect every minute to bring wild excitement, 'cause it just doesn't. It doesn't on films, anyway.

I didn't make 'Wild Bill' because I wanted to become a director; I just wanted to make 'Wild Bill.'

I feel crazy that me sticking with my dreams actually worked. It's wild and incredible.

Why resist temptation? There will always be more.

What I learned with Cecil Taylor was strategy and survival and how to resist temptations and resist getting discouraged.

I am not stopped by low funds, physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion, or temptations to stop and work on some other production that would be more financially rewarding.

I didn't need tempting back to the theatre. It's always been something I'd wanted to do again and again and again, but with every job, you can only take what's in front of you or what's offered.

I've had this reoccurring dream for the last ten to fifteen years.

A big part of reporting is just being present. You have to show up ten days in a row to get the one telling detail.

Even when I perform in front of ten people, I still give that energy as if I was performing in front of 3500.

I only finish probably one out of every ten things I start. I give up all the time.

I want to be able to say that a rap career could be ten albums.

I was single-minded on what I wanted to do since I was like nine or ten.

You just realize that at the beginning of 'Scooby' you're just going to start at level ten and stay at ten the entire time. It's hard. It physically beats you up. It's definitely one of the hardest movies you can do.

My first company failed completely. And it failed at about ten months old. I had about 12 months of savings, so when it failed I was thinking: 'Do I go back to work?' And at that point I believed so deeply in what I was doing that I couldn't imagine anything else other than trying to make this business work.

When you put comedy in the room it's supposed to be in, you start learning it's a process. Not everything is a home run. You have singles, and you ground a few out. But ultimately, it's the journey you have with that comedian, whether it's ten minutes or an hour.

I exercise every morning, no matter what. Sometimes it's tough to do right when you get off the plane, but after ten minutes you start sweating, and you always feel better.

It's a manic-depressive life. You run in here, you open your incubator, your experiment makes no sense, you think, 'I hate this job.' Then ten minutes later you think, 'Well, now, maybe I'll try this or I'll try that.' You do it because you know there will be an 'a-ha!' day.

You can win ten times, and then you are not able to win five times. I have to discover the reason why, and I am going to find that.

Nashville, there's people that are ten times more talented than me, ten times better singer than me, song writer than me, but for some reason you get the ball, and now - and now you run with it. And you do the best you can.