Laila Ali Quotes

It's important to me to try and expose young people to the things they believe are off-limits to them. I tell them, 'There are no walls, only the ones we put up.' My advice to young people looking at my life is not to follow my footprint but to go out there and make their own.

My comfort zone is like a little bubble around me, and I've pushed it in different directions and made it bigger and bigger until these objectives that seemed totally crazy eventually fall within the realm of the possible.

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.

Mediocrity scares me. It's the fear of not being as good as you want to be. If you give over to that fear, it will sabotage you. As much as I can, I try to use that fear to guide me.

If I were to listen to people all the time when they say, 'Hey, this is a really high challenge, this is a high climb, the bar is pretty steep,' then I wouldn't have gone to the academy. I wouldn't have become an aircraft carrier pilot. I wouldn't have become a Navy SEAL for sure. And I probably wouldn't have applied to Harvard.

Raise your ambition beyond where you're capable of now. There's nothing about my hometown that said I'd be working with Fortune 50 CEO's, Olympians, at the highest level.

I like doing things that people wouldn't necessarily think I can do.

You can become whoever you want to be. You can do what you want to do.

I think I'd like to be inspirational to anyone who has a dream, anyone who wants to make more of their life than maybe what is set out in front of them. And you can!

One of the reasons why I decided to participate in 'HawthoRNe' was I really wanted the opportunity to show how ordinary people do extraordinary things.

If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.

I'm inspired by challenges. My life was always like this.

I really feel like becoming a director came from other women saying, 'Yeah, you can do this.' I wanted to direct 'Six Feet Under,' and no, they didn't let me.

I try to do things I haven't been able to before.

I want more out of life than I've gotten.

When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, I need more out of my life and I need to push myself harder. And if at the end of the day I don't have it, then I don't have it, but at least I'm going to put myself out there. If I fail, I'm going to fail terrifically.

Coming from a small town it was tough to dream big. When I grew up in a small town in Georgia, my biggest dream was one day to be able to go to Atlanta.

Most of the time, I do what I'm offered, but after I worked for it. I think I try much harder for the things that scare me and inspire me. The things that scare and inspire you are things that are different from what you did before.

Obviously, I'm still building a name and reputation for myself. The stigmas that come with my past will remain there for quite some time, but I'm not afraid to challenge those things, and I never have been.

Women have to summon up courage to fulfill dormant dreams.

Nobody really thought I was going to make it, because I was a musician. I really wasn't a singer.

As a person who came from a small town and had dreams of becoming an actor, I know what it's like to have no support system for what it is that you want to do. A lot of people think you don't have a chance.

One extends one's limits only by exceeding them.

Then I was working in a store in Newark, New Jersey, and I saw an actor in person, and I got so excited. My whole day changed. That's when I decided to challenge myself to make my dreams become a reality.

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.