979 Career Quotes

In my view, only those who have had the courage to work through Lacan's anti-philosophy without faltering deserve to be called 'contemporary philosophers'.

If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way.

I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.

I did not decide to become an officer to start a military career. I still wanted to be an agronomist and work in some remote corner of Russia after the war. I could not suppose that my country would change, and I would.

A lot of girls ask for advice on how to get into acting, and I'm kind of the worst person to ask, because it just kind of fell in my lap... I was just in the right place at the right time.

Well, I think every film student goes into film school thinking they want to write and direct their own movies, and they don't realize how much goes into it, and what a process it is.

From the moment I leave my house or my hotel room, the public owns me. The public made Alice Cooper and I can't imagine ever turning my back on my fans.

I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.

I had this rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life, what had been my childhood dream.

Taking a year off and going to school was the best thing I could have done after The Princess Diaries. It taught me that I don't need Hollywood or a job to make me happy.

I would recommend all men in choosing a profession to avoid any that may require an apology at every turn; either an apology or else a somewhat violent assertion of right.

Unfortunately, it's possible to be able to do something extremely well that nobody ever wants done.

My first big acting performance was in the Marilyn Monroe biography piece, and it required frontal nudity. I talked to Mira Sorvino, my co-star, about how nervous I was because I didn't know how my mom would react. She said, 'Can I be completely honest with you? I've seen your mom in interviews, and she seems pretty screwed up. I don't think there's much you could do to shock a broad like that.' And from that moment on it was big nipples to the wind!

I probably hold the distinction of being one movie star who, by all laws of logic, should never have made it. At each stage of my career, I lacked the experience.

I am a person always full of contradictions... It was hard to choose whether to devote myself to revolution as a soldier or as a writer.

I wouldn't worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be.

I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.

I don't think of myself as a character actress - that's become a phrase which means you've had it.

I wanted to be the first to win three Oscars, but Miss Hepburn has done it. Actually it hasn't been done. Miss Hepburn only won half an Oscar. If they'd given me half an Oscar I would have thrown it back in their faces. You see, I'm an Aries. I never lose.

I will never be below the title.

I will not retire while I've still got my legs and my make-up box.

In this business, until you're known as a monster you're not a star.

Locations are all tough, all miserable. I never left the sound stage for 18 years at Warners. We never went outside the studio, not even for big scenes.

Today everyone is a star - they're all billed as 'starring' or 'also starring'. In my day, we earned that recognition.

I hope some historian will confirm that I was the first cartoonist to use the word 'booger' in a newspaper comic strip.

Music is 99% of my life. But I know I need a break. Besides, if you give people too much, they start to not want it. We need to restrain ourselves.

If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.

All the information you need is available to you to have a successful career in music, if you're paying attention, and not closed off to anything. Remember, Perseverance is King.

A lot of musicians don't learn the business. You just have to be well-rounded in both areas. You have to understand publishing. You have to understand how you make money, what's in demand, what helps you make the most out of your talent.

I was hardly fit for human society. Thus destiny shaped me to be a science fiction writer.

I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.

It is comparatively easy to become a writer; staying a writer, resisting formulaic work, generating one's own creativity - that's a much tougher matter.

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.

The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success.

I need physics more than friends.

I'm the last guy in the world to feel overlooked by the Academy.

The truth is most of the films that make a lot of money no one remembers, and I'm not interested in making films that no one remembers.

Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it.

I've always wanted to see my name up in tights.

I've listened to Jazz since I was born and always knew I'd be a Jazz singer!

I wanted to be a visual artist because I grew up around a lot of painters and photographers and had a very artistic upbringing. And I fantasized about being a drug-dealer when I was a kid. I thought it would be a good opportunity; I knew that the market would be strong. Is that bizarre?

I was never interested in 'Teen Beat' like roles. I just wanted to work.

For a time, at least, I was the most famous person in the entire world.

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

The most important thing for a young man is to establish a credit... a reputation, character.

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

I like drama. I love being in a drama where I get to be the funny guy. That's what I really love the most.

I have a backlog of novels which I would love to be working on and would be working on if I were not obliged to hold down a full time job.

If I had the luxury of working as a full time writer, I think you would see novels appearing on a much more regular, and frequent, basis.

You just have to keep trying to do good work, and hope that it leads to more good work. I want to look back on my career and be proud of the work, and be proud that I tried everything. Yes, I want to look back and know that I was terrible at a variety of things.

Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.

A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn.

What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.

I started when I was three years old, doing commercials and Modeling in New York, I liked it so much that I kept doing it.

I want to play an action hero. I'm ready for roles that totally aren't me.

I wish I'd never been an actor. I'd rather have been a streetwalker, selling my body, than selling my tears and my laughter, my grief and my joy.

You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

Beautiful women seldom want to act. They are afraid of emotion and they do not try to extract anything from a character that they are portraying, because in expressing emotion they may encourage crow's feet and laughing wrinkles. They avoid anything that will disturb their placidity of countenance, for placidity of countenance insures a smooth skin.

Truth is, I've always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers.

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

Wouldn't it be great if we all grew up to be what we wanted to be? The world would be full of nurses, firemen, and ballerinas.

If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot of different places, just write a Unix operating system.

The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.

In Massachusetts, where properly qualified 'persons' were allowed to practice law, the Supreme Court decided that a woman was not a 'person,' and a special act of the legislature had to be passed before Miss Lelia Robinson could be admitted to the bar. But today women are lawyers.

Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.

If you have a job without any aggravations, you don't have a job.

Success follows doing what you want to do. There is no other way to be successful.

The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy.

Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely like exercising authority usually lose it.

One of my first jobs was on a lesbian cruise. I was the ship comedian for the Lesbian Love Boat.

For precocity some great price is always demanded sooner or later in life.

People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

First, I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that I'm an actress.

Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.

A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.

I think cheesecake helps call attention to you. Then you can follow through and prove yourself.

I've never liked the name Marilyn. I've often wished that I had held out that day for Jean Monroe. But I guess it's too late to do anything about it now.

People ask me if I am going on making cheesecake pictures now that I'm a star. My answer is that as long as there is a boy in Korea who wants a pinup of me, I'll go on posing for them.

Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don't expect me to be serious about my work.

You can't sleep your way into being a star. It takes much, much more. But it helps a lot of actresses get their first chance that way.

I don't mind that I'm fat. You still get the same money.

If you're successful, acting is about as soft a job as anybody could ever wish for. But if you're unsuccessful it's worse than having a skin disease.

The only reason I'm in Hollywood is that I don't have the moral courage to refuse the money.

I am not going to be dictated to by fans, certainly. I am dictated enough to by my record company to last me a million years.

An artist carries on throughout his life a mysterious, uninterrupted conversation with his public.

I'd rather be dead than singing 'Satisfaction' when I'm forty-five.

I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends.

If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes.

I'm a commercial writer, not an author. Margaret Mitchell was an author. She wrote one book.

I'm not an author, I'm a writer, that's all I am. Authors want their names down in history; I want to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney.

I'm 82 years old, wherever I go everybody knows me, but here's why... I'm a merchandiser, I'm not just a writer, I stay in every avenue you can think of.