Derek Jacobi Quotes

I think it's been confusing for people because I haven't had a linear career.

Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise: those guys have well-planned careers. I'm just on a journey. Wherever I run across a job, I say, 'Okay, I'll do that.'

I have never had a plan when it comes to my career: America came to me with an opportunity.

I started out as a lawyer and came in laterally to Goldman Sachs. So I learned myself that life is unpredictable. That you really should, in terms of your career, try to be excellent at what you're doing. I think if you focus on your job, and you focus on being broad in the context of your job, the next jobs follow from that.

I really moved through my career based on curiosity about something. I never looked at a title and said, 'I want that.'

I've never planned my career, really. It just comes along, and I do whatever comes next!

People have these ideas of what you're supposed to do to have a career, like play against type, or don't revisit a character. I'm just not that precious.

When I look back on my career - if that's what it is - it looks a bit like a crazy quilt, and I think it's just really because, when one job has finished, I've never really been in a position where I had three or four options.

It's always been my way to move about a little more horizontally. My career has never been like a shooting star.

Just because you started your careers in a certain role, let's say hardware engineering, does not mean you'll end your careers in hardware.

I always found new challenges in my career.

You don't have to start with your dream job, and your idea of what the dream job might be will change during a working life that will have its share of ups and downs, setbacks and advances.

You never know the way your career takes.

You know, it looks like I have a varied resume or a varied career, that I've made interesting choices, when the truth of the matter is, in a way I've just kind of piece-mealed a career together, you know?

Each of my career decisions has been very much about doing what I wanted to achieve in the role and then finding another challenge.

I don't believe in that kind of pragmatic career ladder stuff.

I'm happy with my career and I'm not going to have the trouble of being typecast.

I view my career like a rubber-band ball in that every role is a new experience building toward something bigger.

I've kind of looked at my whole career as a spring training invite.

It took a long time to get to the place in my career where I could pick and choose what I wanted to do.

There are a lot of new opportunities that are poking their head up in my future. I've been very fortunate that way, but for right now, what I like is what I'm doing.

It would have shown people that I was prepared to do that kind of work, although I find myself in a position now where I don't really need to and I could pick and choose the kind of characters I'd like to do.

I've come to realize your career is all about the choices you make. Every single one matters.

The first half of my TV career, I didn't do any genre at all.

My career has evolved at its own peculiar pace. American careers are supposed to have a much more singular direction than I've been able to... stomach.