Quotes About Perseverance

You worked every day to earn what's on the table, literally. It was a week-to-week thing. And I wouldn't change it. I would not change it for anything.

I started doing radio commercials for Kmart when I was 4. They had to splice all my consonants together because I couldn't talk very well. But these jobs helped my mother and me put food on the table. It took the two of us working.

My wife, Sharon, and I started with nothing when we got married. I was driving a 1902 Pinto and eating off a card table.

My dad grew up in a mud hut and studied by candlelight. He was 14 when he got a scholarship to Russia. He was super clever - the cleverest person. He landed in 5ft of snow, and was alone at 14, studying science and engineering. He didn't have a bed, and he slept on a table.

Not to psychologize, but it's hard growing up in a family of 14 to ever feel like you're the center of the universe, or that you're that special or different. Because when it comes down to it, you're still fighting for food at the dinner table.

There are certainly moments in the story room where you watch the movie die on the table. You put A next to B, and suddenly none of it lines up anymore. We feel that all the time. It's a terrible feeling.

The life of an actor lends itself to emotion, and yet you have to be tough as old boots to stay at the table.

I remember when I was 13 and telling people I wanted to be an actor, and being met with, 'Have fun waiting tables,' so I figured maybe that's not such a great idea after all.

My sister taught me addition and subtraction and multiplication and division, so by the time I got to school, I knew it all, and when we'd do the times tables, I was just focused on doing it faster than anybody else. I already had the information, so it just got me to focus on excellence.

I've done everything from stocking shelves at a natural food co-op, to baking bagels at Brueggers and bussing tables. Then I realized that jobs suck, but if you could get up at 6 A.M. and bake your own breakfast, that is very satisfying.

There were many years when I was hand-to-mouth and didn't know how I was gonna make rent. I've done every job under the sun, from busing tables, temping, and working in factories to SAT prep and detailing cars. So to be able to make a living where all I do is write is absolutely liberating.

When I started go-go dancing on tables for a living, I didn't want to tell my mom or my dad. I made 25 dollars a night, and I was able to make my rent, with the four girls I lived with.

Frazzled and delirious, as I've just finished a new book of stories. I feel like Moses staggering down the mountainside with the tablets of stone.

I live my life with positivity, so even if there was a low, I'd find a positive in the situation. It's how I am with everything in life. With acting, I don't love the celebrity side of it and the tabloids, but at the end of the day, I love what I do so much, it overrides all that.

If you grew up the same way I grew up, don't listen to what certain tabloids want to tell you. They just want to steal your joy. They just want to pull you down.

When I became king on the court against my brothers, they stopped playing with me. When I started to learn the game, play the game and appreciate the game, I knew I had a chance to be good at it. But the Naismith Hall of Fame, that's not something you prepare for. That's taboo.

The man who is gloomy, taciturn and lives in a world of doubt seldom achieves more than a bare living. There have been a few who have groaned their way through to a competence, but in proportion to that overwhelming number of souls who carry cheer through life, they are as nothing - mere drops in the bucket.

It's embarrassing that we're in the 21st century and we don't even know what makes gravity work. I'm getting older and thinking maybe I should tackle more than the mundane. I may fail, but at least I will have tried.

I broke my finger in a stunt in a very not-too-romantic way. I was just trying to tackle someone, and I just flicked his forearm and then screamed in pain.

In Australia, we've always been a country that runs the ball right up the middle on the fifth tackle. We've never seen a challenge we didn't like, and we've certainly never run from one.

If you went and found my draft bio, I wasn't supposed to play left tackle, and I sure as hell wasn't supposed to play it for 12 years.

It's exciting to be able to be part of the block and tackle of building a company from a smaller base.

It makes me feel resilient when you tackle different things.

I feel now that a tackle or an interception high up the pitch is as nice a feeling as creating a goal for someone else.