Quotes About Success

I owe a lot to my time on 'House of Cards' because, up until I booked that show, I had been working consistently for 12 years, but I wasn't working on anything that mattered in the way 'House of Cards' did to its audience, to casting directors, to directors and producers. The show hit this sweet spot.

'Game of Thrones' has kind of got the Midas touch, certainly for the lead actors and those recurring guest stars. It's the show that can do no wrong because it's so well produced. My contribution is short, but I think, in my mind, it was sweet because it involved such elaborate scenes.

Our experience with Marvel has been amazing, and we really do feel like we're in our creative sweet spot there.

It's hard to get to the right position, to be somebody who is commercially successful and critically acclaimed. That's the sweet spot.

I embraced, I think, the process of becoming No. 1 of the world, which was long and difficult, but it's sweeter in the end.

It wasn't supposed to work - being a new artist, a female artist, an artist on an independent. That's what made it so much sweeter when we hit No. 1.

When I was coming up, it was the golden age. It was Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan, and Reese Witherspoon was starting. You really had, 'Who is America's Next Sweetheart?' every couple of years. And then this sort of bromance slacker thing took over.

When I started writing, the deal was that publishers gave you a grand or two as an advance to buy some sweets, with the promise that they would make a big putsch with your fourth book when you'd built up a bit of a following. But by the time my fourth book came out, previously unpublished authors were the new big thing.

It's real easy in a lot of businesses for your head to swell up, and you become somebody else. So that's one of my main goals in the business - to continue to be me.

Growing up, my imagined life as a musician was something along the lines of me lounging in a Learjet en route to a swelling outdoor amphitheatre on a dazzling summer's eve.

Everyone has their 'Showgirls.' We remember the great films actors have been in, and the rest get forgotten. But occasionally, people like to revisit the ones that get swept aside.

That's the food chain that cricket is sometimes. You have to be at the top of it otherwise you get swept away and eaten up.

I shouldn't have been diagnosed as swiftly as I had been. I shouldn't have recovered as fully as I did. I shouldn't have been able to write a book that did as well as it did, and that book should never have been made into a movie. Yet, here I am.

In this business you either sink or swim or you don't.

After the 2013 World Championships, I had three goals for the Olympics: to swim 3:56 or better in the 400-meter freestyle, break 8:05 in the 800, and win gold in the 200. I achieved all of those, and soon, it will be time to set some new goals.

It felt good to actually have a decent swim.

My coach and I thought I could swim a 57.3 if I executed the perfect race, but I did even better than that.

Growing up, I was a water baby. We lived near a lake, had a pool in our backyard, and as soon as I was old enough, I joined a swim team. By 10, I was winning local events.

A career is about learning to adapt yourself to the new environment and learning to sink or swim.

I tell people that the best thing that can ever happen to you is getting fired, and you can either sink or swim, and I swam like hell. The reason why I swam the way I swam was because there was nothing else for me.

It's sink or swim for me in 2020.

In one session, I saw a lady and a man learn to swim for the first time. Within an hour, the man swam front crawl for half a length, and the lady finished a full length with her head under water.

I was a competitive swimmer in middle school and high school.

Being on the podium, of course, is enjoyable, but the majority of what - not just myself, not just swimmers, I think the majority of all athletes - it's not necessarily fun, the core of the whole process.