"Our comfort zones can be our greatest enemy to our potential."
"Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty."
"It's the final steps of a journey that create an arrival."
"In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it."
"You get the best efforts from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within."
"The poor man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream."
"Make it a bad moment, not a bad day."
"We must be the change we want to see in the world."
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it."
"People may fail many times, but they become failures only when they begin to blame someone else."
"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing- that's why we recommend it daily."
"Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility and commitment."
"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments."
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."
"If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator."
"For the most part, fear is nothing but an illusion. When you share it with someone else, it tends to disappear."
"Enlightenment--that magnificent escape from anguish and ignorance--never happens by accident. It results from the brave and sometimes lonely battle of one person against his own weaknesses."
"I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation."
"Until one is committed
There is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
Always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
There is one elementary truth,
The ignorance of which kills countless ideas
And splendid plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself,
Then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
That would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision
Raising in one's favor all manner
Of unforeseen incidents and meetings
And material assistance,
Which no man could have dreamt
Would have come his way.
I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
"How do you want to be in the world today? The power of this one question has the ability to open up our sense of authenticity and invite us to be more honest with others and ourselves. By asking this question a space opens where there can be conscious choice rather than just a reliance on old habits and ways of being. It is easy to blame and excuse behaviors because "that’s just the way I am" but it is much more challenging to be accountable for each choice we make and the affect it has on the world around us. So as you wake up in the morning ask yourself "How do I want to be in the world today?" and as you go to bed at night ask yourself "Did I live in integrity to my intention from this morning?" This exercise can be challenging but eye opening as well as it opens us up to a commitment to personal integrity."
"You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you."
"There's a myth that time is money. In fact, time is more precious than money. It's a nonrenewable resource. Once you've spent it, and if you've spent it badly, it's gone forever."
"The longest road in the world is the road to redemption."
"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not yet seen."
"Mass recognition isn't important. What's important is individual recognition. It's not how many people recognize you. It's what those who do recognize you, recognize you for."
"The great adventure of being an actor is that acting is a continuing education. As an adjunct to whatever your career might be, you should continue working on your craft. The great joy of acting is to be an artist, and that requires intelligence, commitment, and depth. The good news is that I have to get up in the morning and create my day. The bad news is that I have to get up in the morning and create my day."
"I take this business very personally. I'm not selling Cadillacs. I'm selling human beings. I'm selling artists' souls. I'm looking for brilliant actors that I think can break - who either have hopes of breaking or who come very close to breaking. An actor must respect my effort, and if he doesn't think I take care of him on that level, then he needs to leave me."
"Don't make the mistake of thinking that upon signing with an agent, your work is done. The worst thing that happens to talent is they get an agent and then just sit at home waiting for the phone to ring. Never quit training. The benefits of learning your craft will eventually always pay off."
"Show business doesn't owe anybody anything. Acting is about what you get to give, not what you try to get. To be an actor is to be educated. I'm still growing every day. I know how much I have to learn. I don't think being an artist is easy. You have to earn things in life. Be creative, consistent, and disciplined. Educate yourself, become friends with yourself, don't expect anything and give everything!"
"If the actor has the right to get auditions for everything, then the agent has the right to say the actor must book everything they're sent out on."
"I had one client who came to me and said, 'I need more auditions.' I said, 'No, you need a class. When I send you out, no one calls me later and tells me you're brilliant. You need to study and make yourself a good actor. He did that and now he's on a series. Although kids can get jobs by being cute, outgoing, and well behaved, continuing in the business past the darling years demands training. You wouldn't enter any other profession in the world without training. Of the children I take, if they have the passion, if they get trained, they get work."
"New tomorrows aren't realized without hard work and persistence. The greatest rewards come from the greatest commitment."
"Things do come to those who wait, but only those things left over from those who hustle."
"Imagine you had a bank that each morning credited your account with $1,440 - with one condition: whatever part of the $1,440 you failed to use during the day would be erased from your account, and no balance would be carried over. What would you do? You'd draw out every cent every day and use it to your best advantage. Well, you do have such a bank, and its name is time. Every morning, this bank credits you with 1,440 minutes. And it writes off as forever lost whatever portion you have failed to invest to good purpose."
"I'm always slightly annoyed with young people who come up to me and ask for advice, and when I seriously question them, I find out that they're really asking me, 'Give me some advice on how to get famous.' You have to need it and it has to be bigger than you. You have to create opportunities if you have the stomach and energy to do it."
"I want an actor with the ability to get a job and pay me a commission."
"It's a strange combination of sick ego and naïveté that allows somebody to think they can make it. Any actor who's working is lucky."
"It's unfortunate that people have this naïve assumption that acting is something you can just pick up and do. You really need to be very healthy to act. It gets easier the more confidence you have in your ability. If your 'food' is fame and money and the Academy Awards, then don't do it. Because that food, even if you get that food, is very transitory. It comes, it goes. You won the Emmy last year. This year no one wants to hire you. I mean, that's the way it is. So you have to decide that what your food is is getting better at doing this everytime you do it."
"The other death for an actor is comparing yourself to other people: Forget someone else's path. Concentrate on your path. Otherwise, you get lost, and if you don't have joy in the work, forget it."
"If you want to have a successful business, you clearly define what you're trying to accomplish. Organize all the elements - financial, research and development, operations, marketing, and so on - to meet your objectives. Most business failures are due to problems such as undercapitalization, misunderstanding of the market, or lack of a business plan. Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a farm - to forget to plant in the spring, play all summer, and then cram in the fall to bring in the harvest? The farm is a natural system. The price must be paid and the process followed. You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut. Education - continuing education, continually honing and expanding the mind - is a vital mental renewal. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continuous process."
"You can't skip any steps in show business. If you get a break before you're ready, it could set you back several years. If you con your way into a situation and stumble and fall, you will find people have very long memories."
"Think of all the times your agent sends out your picture and talks about you when you don't know it. Your agent does not get you work. You get your own work. The times I have not worked have been directly related to my rise and fall as a person. We can only hope our agents will be supportive in our dark moments and help us retain our perspective in our right moments. Notice I say moments. Neither state will last."
"Trust your agent and follow their advice. Actors and agents who make it are fearless. Actors get 85% of the money, so we really need to give up being cranky about doing 85% of the work. Return calls promptly. It's not okay to call and say 'What's happening?' The agent has all our responsibilities and more. The agent must maintain relationships with clients and buyers."
"It is not okay to bad-mouth the agent to others in the business. If you've got a gripe, take it up with the agent. Don't say you want to leave your agent because you're not working. There may be reasons for this that has nothing to do with your agent. You may be traveling into a new age category and have not yet finished the journey. You might be getting stale and need to study. You might be having personal problems that are reflected in your work. Your type may not be in. If something is bothering you, you owe it to yourself and your agent to talk before you get resentful."
"Be respectful and don't put your agent on the defensive. We all know the stereotypes about agents... they lie, that's their job. But most agents are hard working, professional regular people who (like you) want to make it in show business. They too, want to be respected for their work and go to the Oscars and Emmys. And they, like you, are willing to put up with the toughest, most heartbreaking business in the world because they are mavericks who love the adventure and can't think of a single thing that interests them more."
"For people who want to be rich and famous, I would suggest trying to be rich first, because fame is a 24 hour job."
"If you want it bad enough, it's there. You can't just sit home and daydream about it. You gotta do the footwork - student films, training, plays, marketing. It's not just doing it once and saying, 'I've done that.' It's ongoing, like eating. I like actors who are constantly doing mailings, gathering information, networking."
"When I got my Academy Award, I thought it was a goal best kept in front of me. I liked the pursuit more than the arrival. I'm much better when I'm hungry. Act more hours of the day than not. Act for free. And if you're lucky, every once in awhile, you'll get paid. Classes give you the opportunity to act. The more you act, the better you get. So go out and act. Pay for the privilege. Or are you going to wait until some director tells you to do something and you don't know how to deal with it? So you go to class to practice that, and to be filled with the enthusiasm for acting."
"Opinions about those in leadership positions tend to rise and fall with events. When times are good for them, people exhibit more confidence in their organization. When times are bad for them, or the organization is experiencing change, people show less confidence, as well as question the credibility of the organization."
"Contrary to popular opinion, supermodels are not created overnight. So what does it take to become successful? Commitment, a good aptitude for business, and an eagerness to work hard. Modeling is not an easy business, because a model has to face the word 'no' more often in a year than most people will in a lifetime. A lot of people can't deal with that emotionally. So keep learning everything you can about your business, yourself, and the opportunities that surround you."
"You have to deal with rejection. You feel like the client doesn't like you, when in reality they have a need to fulfill. So you can't take it personally. Take care of yourself and your appearance. Prepare and educate yourself. The more you do, the more you realize you don't know anything. Don't let your insecurities undermine your efforts."
"Don't personalize everything that comes along. If you've got a lot of talent and a look that's in demand, I don't care how unhealthy your mental attitude is - you'll probably work. That doesn't mean you're going to be happy, though, and it doesn't mean you'll continue to work. You'll do that crash dive eventually. The healthier your mental attitude is, the easier it will be to take those down cycles."
"It's like the eighth century circle of life theory. We all enter from different points, but the circle keeps going around. It's either going to be going up or down. You can't be up all the time. In fact, you're going to be up only a very short time. The rest of the time you're either going down or coming up, or you're going to be at rock bottom. If you've got a healthy mental attitude, it'll carry you through that bottom part of the circle, and also keep you from going off the deep end into your ego when you're at the top part of the circle. Both the top and bottom parts are the whim of God, but you've got to be prepared for both."
"We are a positive, happy, healthy, productive, and busy environment with open doors to those who have hopes and dreams for all that is good and creative. We love people who want to help others and themselves accomplish their hopes and dreams. We expect people to leave complaints and negativity at the door, as they seek constructive and positive ways to communicate, share, appreciate, improve, learn, and grow. Our goal is to make things happen... to finish what we start; to learn and grow for the good of all concerned; to smile for the good fortune of being around loving, caring, mutually concerned, nurturing, and creative people. If you have negative thoughts, convert them into positive ones. Be constructive. Replace the consequences of being in a funk, or belittling yourself and others, with doing something nice for yourself or another. Listen to what other people have to say. A conversation works best when people listen with respect toward each other. If being negative feels good to you, we do not want to take that away from you. But we do not have the time to undo the effect of being infected with contagious, negative, self-destructive, and complaining thoughts. Smiles and appreciation motivate us to accomplish more than we ever imagined. Consider yourself home - in a nice, well adjusted, fun, fruitful place!"
"With age comes the inner, the higher life. Who would be forever young, to dwell always in externals?"
"For every person who climbs the ladder of success, there are a dozen people waiting for the elevator."
"The road to success is always under construction."
"You don't want to kick out the rungs of the ladder on the way up, because you're going to need them to catch you when you fall."
"I always find it frightening walking on a carpet with banks of photographers on either side. That's just part of the machinery that's selling your image to make money for the film. People get carried away with that because everyone's really fascinated by movie stars. They think they're all fantastic human beings. See, in my experience, most of them aren't."
"Seek not the favor of the multitude. It is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of the few, and number not the voices, but weigh them."
"Be who you are and say what you feel. Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
"The smallest deed is greater than the grandest intention."
"Don't judge a book by its cover 'til you've read the book."
"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."
"I've seen 'karma' slap people in the face. You have to be good to people. It really does come around."
"Why must our stars fall so spectactularly and fail us so egregiously? ...Because we want them to. Indeed, it may be the prime instructive function of celebrities to show us, in their early radiance, what we could dream of being - and in the murk of their decline, what we fear, or know, we could become."
"Stay grounded, because someday all this is going to come to an end... Don't let... adulation give you a phony sense of who you are. And above all else, remember this is just a job. Nothing more."
"Make sure that whoever you have as management - the people around you - care about you in the long term... Keep the good friends who care that you're an everyday schmo."
"I was turned down by every record label in L.A. Perseverance is three quarters of the game. Talent's only a quarter. Being able to withstand the word 'no' over and over can build you a pretty tough skin. I knew if I just kept at it, at the very least I'd get better at my craft."
"He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had tried and failed."
"Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it."
"If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?"
"Fear not those who argue but those who dodge."
"You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star."
"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."
"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will."
"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing."
"Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, that is not easy."
"The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech."
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."
"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."
"Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
"Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not."
"Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles."
"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."
"It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows."
"Learn wisdom from the ways of a seedling. A seedling which is never hardened off through stressful situations will never become a strong productive plant."
"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards."
"The essence of man is imperfection. Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success. If we learn to embrace that new definition of failure, then we are free to start moving ahead - and failing forward."
"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."