Unrecognized Achievements Quotes

My father wasn't too crazy about me. I loved him anyway. One of the things I regretted for a long time was that he died before he could see that he would be proud of me. I was actually more what he wished for than he thought.

Everywhere I've managed, I've left a platform for my successor to build on, and this is a great satisfaction for me, even if I don't necessarily get the recognition for it.

I have been underestimated for decades. I have done very well that way.

I feel like I am doing a lot, but if someone asks me what exactly I have accomplished, I don't know... putting my son to sleep, feeding him, taking care of things in the house amount to a lot of work. But, yes, I haven't arrested 14 criminals in one day or saved the world or anything of that sort!

When my father passed, I was still an unsuccessful cook with a drug problem. I was in my mid-thirties, standing behind an oyster bar, cracking clams for a living when he died. So, he never saw me complete a book or achieve anything of note. I would have liked to have shared this with him.

People only know me for what they've heard, but that only represents about 10 percent of what I've done.

One of the most important rules for success is this: Every great success is the result of hundreds and thousands of small efforts and accomplishments that no one sees or appreciates.

I'm always drawn to the underdogs, to the people whose stories don't get told.

Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the bier.

To keep the ball rolling I asked Marlow if this Powell was remarkable in any way. “He was not exactly remarkable,” Marlow answered with his usual nonchalance. “In a general way it’s very difficult to become remarkable. People won’t take sufficient notice of one, don’t you know.”

I mean, I haven't been around very long. I can't expect everyone to have seen 'The House Bunny'. Oh God. I am having such waves of internal embarrassment, which now I'm admitting on a tape recorder. This is so one of the things I should keep in my head.

I've got a lot of silvers. Second seems to be something I end up being. I don't want to be the bridesmaid forever.

America doesn't reward people of my age, either in day-to-day life or for their performances.

Nobody's going to write a book about me, because nobody's going to find anything worth writing a book about.

If you go into any physics lab, everybody is depressed and feels isolated. We don't get any feedback that anybody cares about what we're doing.

I don't think it would be very difficult for me to open the chapters of my life because there isn't much there.

I've had some interesting stuff happen to me - so why doesn't anyone ask me?

Success cannot be advertised: failure cannot be explained. In the work of intelligence, heroes are undecorated and unsung, often even among their own fraternity.

Everything I've done in my career has been for nothing.

Fights with my father were really quite brutal. I would not live his vision. I would not become who he wanted me to be. Everything I did was criticized. I would spend three months drawing something and show him, and he would look up from his paper and just look back down. I got no approval from him for anything I did that was creative.

I'm not a media darling. I'm forever the outsider, for whatever the reason is.

I grew up in a family where you could never be the center of attention.

Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps

Middle age snuffs out more talent than ever wars or sudden deaths do.

The fact that there has to be a man behind my success when I genuinely have worked so hard is frustrating.