Quotes About Persistence

After I won the Pulitzer, there was this sense of, 'OK, that's enough for you. Now go away.' What I wanted was to keep writing, keep working. But no one would produce anything of mine they didn't think would be as big as 'night, Mother.'

I've been working every year since I started acting, and I got many awards before I won the Oscar for 'The Queen.'

I've been pretty good about keeping my nose to the grindstone. I feel like I won a lot of matches from hard work and persistence, even maybe when I had better options as far as shot-making.

I fought Sugar Ray Robinson so many times, it's a wonder I don't have diabetes.

When someone is impatient and says, 'I haven't got all day,' I always wonder, How can that be? How can you not have all day?

I don't know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody - somewhere - was practicing more than me.

I've always been strong-minded, but I wonder.

I used to sneak up to the 8th floor and watch Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo rehearsing 'Saturday Night Live' and could only wonder if I would ever have the chance to be funny. It took me five years to go up the two stories, but it is such a sense of fulfillment to be able to show what I can do on national television.

I wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough - when they are on the very brink of success.

I don't know what keeps me going. Sometimes I wonder... I think it's just pure perseverance and wanting to succeed and having that burning desire to always have success.

I wonder now how tough you have to be to get big things done.

Something I've learned is that when people tell me I can't do something, I immediately wonder why and then think it through. It only makes me more motivated to prove them wrong.

People wonder what you are going to do after you've won the Champions League three times? Win it again, if I can.

People think that you're gonna come out, be a one hit wonder, and finished. You gotta prove 'em wrong.

I went from thinking, 'I wonder if I can be a broadcaster. Will anybody give me a chance? Maybe I can get a shot at it,' to thinking, 'Man, I want to do this for a long time.'

If I'd been easily discouraged, I could have been a one-hit wonder.

When not much is happening and there seems to be nothing you can do to change that, you do wonder. But I am an actor, like it or not. I stuck with it and took what was offered.

I hate first drafts, and it never gets easier. People always wonder what kind of superhero power they'd like to have. I wanted the ability for someone to just open up my brain and take out the entire first draft and lay it down in front of me so I can just focus on the second, third and fourth drafts.

There were a lot of times I wondered if I was deluding myself. I had nothing else to fall back on, but I never enjoyed anything else.

There have been a few times when I wondered if I was ever going to take a wicket, but you never give up.

I'm tired of playing people who are complete washouts and bums. I don't mind waiting for the good ones to come along. It's like age. It's never bothered me. I've even forgot my birthday. Many times I've wondered if I should tell my real age, but now I think it's an honor, to be doing what I'm doing now at my age.

From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me.

There've been times where I wondered whether it was worth continuing in my own education.

For 'The Big Wander,' I probably had ten different outlines before I made myself start writing. I would sleep on each one, thinking it was wonderful, but I would always awake perceiving some flaw.