Quotes About Self-reliance

I am financing the recording myself. So I have no big names to drop.

I have more perspective now, and am happier now. It's not that I don't want success, but I now know I can have success at a lower level and make much more money doing it by myself. I make $6 or $7 bucks a record vs. nothing off those other records.

I didn't need to depend on the record company to publish my records.

I do my own makeup for events and red carpet stuff.

If a portion of a redwood is rotting, the redwood will send roots into its own form and draw nutrients out of itself as it falls apart. If we had redwood-like biology, if we got a touch of gangrene in our arm, then we could just, you know, extract the nutrients and the moisture out of it until it fell off.

Whenever comparisons get too crazy I just think about my goals, and what I want from myself. I don't look at any references.

I always have that in the back of my head - the idea that I've been spoon-fed because of where I'm from. I think that's one of the main things that drives me to work harder to show that, in reality, I haven't been handed anything.

My whole life, nothing was handed to me. I had to go out in the world and get it.

I never had a belt handed to me as a gift.

It's very nice to meet people who just get on, work hard, and don't have things handed to them.

I'm a big fan of working for things. If everything was handed to me, I wouldn't appreciate it.

Nothing has been handed to me my entire life. You have to go there and take it. My mom taught me that.

I'm letting no man handle my bank account.

I'm a big boy; I can handle criticism.

We're all grown men, and we all have our ways of handling our problems. I'm not secretive, but I don't really talk about things.

Nobody should be forced to face evil with empty hands.

I'm not in the business of telling people 'DIY or die,' but I do think it's important to be as hands-on with what you're doing as possible.

One actor in my life is enough, and that's me. With actors, it's too easy to go into this world of complaining. Someone will always be better, richer, more loved, do more work. Those dynamics don't interest me. The friends I hang out with, we create our own work rather than complain about acting.

I have a really hard time with people telling me what to do.

I learned in an extremely hard way that the accountability falls with me.

Until 'Scrubs,' I didn't have a business manager. I learned everything on my own - and I learned the hard way.

I learned the hard way that taking shortcuts and living for free is not really living free.

I've never been spoon-fed for my whole career, I have always done it the hard way as a player and a manager.

I won't give the credit to 'good fortune.' Whatever I have achieved is because of my hard work and passion.