Quotes About Persistence

I think that what's been holding composers back a great deal is that they feel they must have a new style every year. This, in my case, would be hopeless. In fact, it is said that I have no style at all, but that doesn't matter. I just go on doing, as they say, my thing. I believe this takes a certain courage.

When they say you can't, show them you can.

Put me on solid ground and I'll start tapping! At my age they say to keep moving.

If I were to listen to people all the time when they say, 'Hey, this is a really high challenge, this is a high climb, the bar is pretty steep,' then I wouldn't have gone to the academy. I wouldn't have become an aircraft carrier pilot. I wouldn't have become a Navy SEAL for sure. And I probably wouldn't have applied to Harvard.

When I started writing it was kind of hard getting people to do my stuff. They' say they couldn't do my style.

They say the average person can't make a living in art... but if you tell me there's something I can't do, that's what I have to do.

I think it surprises a lot of people that I'm still around, you know, still - that I'm not pushing up daisies, as they say.

What I would say to young entrepreneurs is there's so many moments in your life where you have these dreams, and people are trying to protect you, and they say, perhaps, friends, family, parents sometimes, they don't agree with it, they think, 'This is just too high of a hurdle.' And I don't agree with that.

The terror of failure can make you feel like a failure. So a bunch of people think you're not very good at your thing. How much do you invest in what they say? How much do you care? Failure is not putting yourself on the line.

The percentage of people that go to drama college in the U.K. is probably just like anywhere in the world. It's a very hard business to work in. They say that, at any one time, there's only 5% of actors in the world that are actually working and getting paid, which is a shocking percentage, really.

People bug you all the time. Sometimes, it's a good bug, when they say you're doing a good job. When it's not a good bug, it's even worse.

For some reason, I have a thick skull.

You've got to have thick skin in this business.

Having been a journalist for thirty-nine years, I've developed a pretty thick skin.

I've learnt that you need to have a thick skin, lots of patience and be consistently good.

As an actor, you have to get used to being told no, develop a thick skin, and just keep persevering.

As players you need to have thick skin and we need to have belief that you will have bad days but it's about making sure you have more good days than bad.

Rejection happens, and you have to have a thick skin about it, which is hard. You can't be overly sensitive about people not picking you.

When you're an aspiring actor, you do so many self-tapes that it gets to a certain point where you have to develop a thick skin, otherwise you will never survive.

You have to have a thick skin, yes. If you're going to do something as foolhardy as standup, you've got to be able to take it on the chin if someone has a go at you.

Dealing with negative comments is part of this job, and I've had to develop a thick skin, though some days it's easier than others.

I would say the more significant factor of my starting late is that I developed a sufficiently thick skin to be able to - just about - handle the knocks that a fledgling comedian takes.

There's this thin line between knowing something is going to be really hard and saying, 'Yeah, you know, but I still gotta see if I can pull it off.'

I started in an asbestos filled room on some thin judo mats and the first time I was in a ring was my first match. We did shows for 50 people and were pleased with that.