Quotes About Perseverance

I went from buying my own condominium and a car for myself when I was 17 on 'The Facts of Life' to not being able to pay my rent. I was at the unemployment office all the time. I had to sell my record collection just to make ends meet. And then I started getting these voice-over jobs.

Years ago, I couldn't get arrested in commercials because of my look: 'Is he Jewish, Hispanic, or African-American?' I ended up doing voiceover work, which has been great. Honestly, I can't complain.

What I'm asking for is hard. It's easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn't possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don't matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

When I made 'Voices of a Distant Star,' I wanted to make money from making that movie, of course, but that wasn't my major reason.

The Blossoms had gotten so we were working seven days a week, three or four sessions a day, which was literally killing us, physically. With the instruments that the musicians play, they can do that, but not with us using our voices.

Siren voices tell me, 'You don't have to keep going on.' And then you think, 'I'm a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?' I don't know. I like being a writer.

The writer has two kinds of faith: actual writing and sitting openly. Have faith in your personal effort or sweat. And faith in God, or whatever you want to call it. Then the voices will come. Faith is the big deal.

Whether you have a small team or a large team, you'll always have a percentage of people telling you to do the opposite of what you think you should be doing. Then you'll have a percentage of people telling you to do the opposite of what they're saying. It's a constant sea of doubtful voices. You have to navigate through that.

Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger.

The fact is that the learning process goes on, and so long as the voices are not stilled and the singers go on singing some of it gets through.

When you're writing you're constantly fighting demons to sit down and do what you do. If you listen to the voices outside your head, in addition to the ones inside your head, you'll never get anything done. There's enough inner strife.

I failed to get into drama school, and my best friend told me I should do stand-up instead. I was always doing gags and voices, so he booked a gig for me without telling me. I only had four days to write it. I did a seven-minute set; the first four minutes were terrible, but the last two were amazing.

We have to fight twice as hard, three times as hard - not only as conservatives, but frankly, as women - to have our voices heard.

Two years after drama school, I had a nervous breakdown: I heard voices, and the voice I heard in my head was Martin Luther King's.

The power of storytelling - of elevating the voices and examples of incredible leaders who have overcome odd after odd - remains absolute.

The sad reality of it is, as black artists in the industry, we still have to work 10 times harder to get our voices out there.

Nobody thought I could do anything with a singing career... except my singing teachers, who were accustomed to hearing voices that could be transformed into something.

Much like film, authors spend a fair amount of time alone in the creative process, tossing their work out into what can feel like an abyss, void of real people.

I didn't miss training because it had become so painful for me. I filled the void pretty quickly as I went straight into coaching and it was great; I had to start learning all over again, and then when I went into TV I knew nothing about it so I had to start from the very beginning.

My father believed strongly, and taught me, that you can't let yourself get too high on a success or too low on a failure. In this volatile business, that's useful to know.

My formative years would be in South Central Los Angeles. It was a really volatile environment, but, I always say, when you're living in the hood, you don't live this life where you're crying every day, downtrodden every day.

My mum had always pressed on me to continue my education, and it was just the volatility of sport in terms of not being able to control the result.

Volleyball was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

When I tell people I'm going to the Olympics, they're like: 'What do you do, track and field? Pole vault? Are you a volleyball player?' No one ever guesses tae kwon do.