Quotes About Commitment

I'm very selective about television because you sign away so much of your life to it.

I would not leave the 'Times' for a television job.

Any actor will tell you there's more of a schedule to doing a television show. That's why you'll notice a lot of big movie actors are doing television, and they'll tell you, it's because of the schedule.

Shooting a television show can be very difficult and at times can really wear on you. If you keep reminding yourself that it is a job and you show up together as a team and as a whole, you can prevail.

Normally, if you do a television show, it's 25 episodes. Your year is kind of shot, you know what I mean?

Do you want to have a career that goes beyond, you know, 11 minutes in a 22-minute television show every week? Some people don't. That's fine.

To be a Southern Ground artist, you have to be a lifer. It's not about winning a karaoke contest or a television show to become famous. It's about really paying your dues. It's people I'm fans of and want to help in the business.

We met and married when both of us knew exactly what our jobs were. He was only 32, but he'd been all over the place. I'd been working on films and television shows all over the world.

Most television shows are going to require an actor sign up from four to six years, but an anthology show really amounts to five or six months at the most. I thought serious actors might be attracted to that.

When you tell the American people, 'Read my lips. No new taxes,' that should mean no new taxes.

I am a story teller and I take each story very seriously.

I met Edward Teller. Everything he believed in and stood for was antithetical to what I believed in and stood for. I like running into that in life. I like extreme points of view, a level of commitment - and I certainly love mastery.

I really love the work that I do, and I feel like you have to go that extra mile to do it because it is a responsibility. Telling stories is a responsibility.

I remember my first agent telling me - because they found me as an actor, but I was probably more interested in writing and maybe directing - they were like, 'Well, you can't do both things.' And I was like, 'I'm gonna show you.'

It was a very long and hard decision. My dad kept telling me, 'You can always go to college, but you can't always go pro.' That made sense to me.

People were telling me, you cant 'play' MMA. It's not a game. You can't play-fight. You gotta be dedicated because it's gonna show in the ring.

I didn't like to stop playing for a second to bother with eating or going to the bathroom. I was a really skinny kid, and I remember my mother always telling people, 'I don't know how she's alive. I think she gets all of her nutrients from air pollution.'

I want to fall in love, I think. I've never. I know. Everyone I know's been in love or in relationships now and... There's only ever been... there's been people telling me they love me, but it freaks me out and I just run, run. I think I'm a bad girlfriend.

But I was always an actor, and I kept telling myself that there will be a day when I will become a good actor.

Being under the microscope meant I was never given any slack. I still managed to screw up plenty in life, mind you, but in the things I really cared about - the legal work, or the stories I was telling as a writer, or the office I built in government - I wasn't left a lot of margin for error. It's kept me driven.

I've been doing this for a long time, telling the truth.

I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

Any parent who tells their kids that they can't attend a school play or go to a soccer match because they have to work is kidding themselves. It's OK to miss a game or two or a performance here and there, but it's not all right to miss the majority of them.

Everybody says love is about finding the person who is right for me and then everything will be fine. But it's not like that. It involves work. An old man tells you this!