Non-Traditional Career Quotes

I've never really had a TV career. I've been a soldier and a climber.

I come from a business family. I rebelled from my father to become a musician.

I came out of a sort of experimental background, and I didn't ever really expect - or even desire - a career as a feature filmmaker.

I grew up all over the world. My dad was a doctor but not a career-type doctor. He was very curious, so he took the whole family and moved to Miami in the '70s, and we lived there for a couple of years. Then we continued like that and lived in various places around the world.

My father was a freelance writer/director/producer, and my mother was a stewardess for Pan-Am. It was very non-traditional.

I never had a job. I never saw myself working for corporate business.

Writing, for me, has always been a way of not having a career.

Both of my parents were incredibly supportive of me being in any arts, because they were both in the arts. They weren't the typical story of, "Oh, get a real job. You need to make money." They basically said, "Yup, be an artist. You'll be broke your whole life but you'll be happy."

When we were starting off as kids, just the idea of maybe going to do this as a living instead of getting what we thought was going to be a boring job, was exciting.

My family was all police and hard hats at the refineries; they didn't know what to think about me. So I became a closet writer.

In the end I created a career of my own, concentrating on my writing and lecturing, reaching larger audiences than I would had I ended up with tenure and a full teaching load. It was Virginia Woolf who said that it is terrible to be frozen out of a sacred tradition - but even more terrible to be frozen into it.

It's not normal, what I do. Just being on television isn't.

I've never really had a real job. When I was young doing stand-up, I'd get 50 bucks a week here or 100 bucks a week there. You know, sometimes for headlining one of the rooms, or MC-ing, or something like that. So yeah, I've never had like a normal job.

My life has been the antithesis of that book 'The Secret'. I've always been interested in doing what I do. I love storytelling and I really enjoyed acting, but it never seemed like a realistic thing.

There's this old saying that, if you aren't particularly gifted in natural sciences, if you don't want to become a teacher or pastor or doctor, and don't know what else to do, then you become a lawyer. But I've never regretted it.

That's a tough question; I've been acting since I was 10. My dad was an entrepreneur, so I guess something along those lines. I wouldn't want a 9-5 job.

I am evidence that you don't have to sell a lot of records or succeed in the usual way to have a big audience and a job.

I didn't want to spend my life behind a desk.

It was never my intention to be an actor, and I don't know if I'll ever call myself an actor because I've always said that would be a slap in the face to proper actors, but it's fun, and thankfully, I've had the luxury in my adult life that anything I've done has been fun.

I thought I was going to be a filmmaker but at the same time I was an intellectual and I felt that I could make a contribution to some field, as yet, not invented.

When your dad makes a living as a children's singer, you figure, 'I can do anything.' He made up his own job and did it.

My parents were intelligent and encouraging, but at the same time, they were displeased at me becoming a wandering troubadour and wire walker.

Aside from a brief stint as a writing tutor during graduate school, I have managed to avoid respectable employment all my adult life.

My career has been a bit strange. I don't think it took the normal route.

Your parents ask you to follow the standard path: School, job, security. Is this really the best way? I don't think so - be your own boss!