Career Risk Quotes

Careers can disappear just as quickly as they're made, so I'm in no hurry.

I've always operated with a great deal of self-doubt. Every time I start a new book it's like, well, this one will destroy the career and I have to overcome that feeling especially in the first hundred pages of the book.

Dad almost died of a heart attack in the middle of making Apocalypse Now, the biggest movie of his life. It doesn't make you want to jump into that business.

I remember when being a 'a company man' was a badge of honor; today in Silicon Valley it may brand you a loser or, in the best case scenario, someone afraid to take risks. Ten years ago, if you saw a resume that had multiple jobs in ten years, you would be worried about the capability of the individual. Not so now.

Any day, the tide could turn. You have one or two bad films, and now you've got to make a comeback.

I don't want to be fired after two seasons and risk never getting another opportunity to coach.

I think it's harder than ever to be an artist. I think that you end up, especially as a middle-aged person, you pay such big consequences for saying, 'I'm just going to devote my life to making art,' or 'I'm going to devote my life to writing novels.' You end up with no resources.

One of the things that I've always not liked is the modern players have always concentrated on dancing in the end zone and BSing when serious things were going on in this country that needed to be changed. So my opinion is that when these young people stand up and risk their careers, that's a good sign for everything and all of us.

When I graduated, I was going to go to school for law, but had such an affinity for hip-hop. It was like walking into a casino and I decided to bet everything on hip-hop, and I hit! My hit wasn't just a hit for me, it was a hit for everyone in this culture.

I like to think I'm like the guy who goes to the office Christmas party Friday night, insults some people, but still has his job Monday morning.

Even when times were good, I realized that my earning power as a golf professional depended on too many ifs and putts.

I've only really had one period when I lost myself and felt like I was going to lose my career, and that was when I first began presenting 'X-Factor' spin-off 'The Xtra Factor' two years ago. I was worried if I did a rubbish job live on Saturday night TV that my music career was going to get affected and I would lose everything.

If you fix your sense of self to your job, then you're heading for disaster.

Really, my biggest risk was just the initial step to quit my day job to do music. I was packaging and shipping for an art gallery in Manhattan; I went to school for painting, so I always wanted to work around artwork, even though I wasn't really contributing anything to the scene.

Be risky at work. Be safe with your investments.

The search for truth is not a trade by which a man can support himself; for a priest it is a supreme peril .

To be honest, I probably wouldn't have gone to Hollywood if I hadn't been offered 'Ugly Betty' because I was a wee bit feart. But you have to make yourself frightened. That's what keeps you alive.

I was nearly fired from my second job, which was writing press releases for Boston's public television station.

I'm trying to build an empire, because after this, I cannot get a normal job.

'Banshee' was kind of a lark. I was getting paid pretty well to write movies no one was making - and so I decided to try my hand at TV and get paid much less to actually get something produced.

I remember telling the head of Warner Brothers that if they'd just make a video for 'Ol' Red'... and if it didn't work, they could drop me from the label.

Not everyone is comfortable moving from home. If you're ready to play abroad and you believe in yourself, why not?

I quit high school to be a pro skateboarder out of Ohio, which is just asinine, but it was meant to be.

I had a couple of agents, but then I went on my own. I thought I could negotiate my own deals and it was probably my biggest mistake.

'Envy the Night' was my first stand alone, the first book I'd written in the third person and I loved the feel of that, and it was different but it was also the same. 'So Cold the River,' I knew, was going to be really different, and that's why I thought about doing it as a novella under a pseudonym, because I didn't want to damage my career.