Uncertainty of Success Quotes

When we are filming, it often feels like we're flying blind. As an actor, you have no idea if your choices are right or if they work. Some scenes feel like a complete Hail Mary. Imagine you're blindfolded and cook a massive Thanksgiving feast with only new recipes - without getting to taste any of them along the way.

People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don't end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to love the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not.

We should not speak of one that prospers well As happy, till his life have run its course, And reached its goal. An evil spirit's gift In shortest time has oft laid low the state Of one full rich in great prosperity, When the change comes, and so the Gods appoint.

It's a weird business, whether you're trying to write or act or do music. You're put in these situations you're not prepared for.

As an actor I am always waiting for my luck to run out.

Why is the feeling of insecurity so prevalent in this field? Because the actor is such a dependent person on other people. If I am a painter, poet, composer, I am not really dependent on others.

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy.

The thing I'm scared of most is not fulfilling my work. There's so much anxiety around trying to get a movie made that you don't really get to be afraid of anything else.

The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of whatever he is desirous to perform. It is true, that no diligence can ascertain success; death may intercept the swiftest career; but he who is cut off in the execution of an honest undertaking has at least the honour of falling in his rank, and has fought the battle, though he missed the victory.

It's unclear how air strikes on our part can succeed unless the Iraqi army is willing to fight, and that's uncertain given the fact that several Iraqi army divisions have melted away.