Evelyn Ashford Quotes

I think it's important to inspire other people to try and do things that people discourage you to do.

I had that laser focus, identified what I wanted when I was a kid, and never let anything get in my way. If you look on paper at who I am and what I sound like, and what I look like, you wouldn't say, 'Go into broadcasting.' It's just what I wanted to do - I knew that I could do it, and I never let anyone tell me that I couldn't.

I believe you must find the things in life that you love, and don't let anybody or anything stop you. There may be lesser successes, but you're never a failure unless you choose not to do something. I don't fail unless I quit. You must believe to receive.

We've got a bunch of guys who have been travelling around the world for over 10 years, scratching and clawing, fighting, just trying to live their dream, just trying to prove people wrong, just trying to show that we belong, and that's kind of the essence of NXT.

I think of things as competition when people say you can't do something.

I feel like you can hope and dream and wish, but until you do, nothing is going to happen. So whatever you're passionate about, whatever your hopes and dreams are, you have to go full-steam ahead. But of course I have my moments where I'm trying so hard, and it never seems to break through. It's always when you want to give up that something's going to happen, right? So you just can't give up.

I try and tell all the kids that I meet that hope to be amazing one day and be a professional athlete or a doctor or a lawyer or whatever they want to be. I tell them they can do all that because Tourette's won't stop them.

I've had a very unusual background in science - not the usual route of planning on being a scientist from age 3. I think my story shows that success is more about personal motivation and determination than it is about where you were born or what your economic status was.

Don't let anyone tell you your ideas are stupid or the thing you feel most passionate about 'won't work' - it's happened to me time and time again, and we find that if you push at what you think is interesting hard enough, you're probably right.

When I was young, a lot of things were closed off to me. I was always told, 'Don't do this, you can't do that' - instead of stopping me, it made me think, 'I can do that, I must do that.'

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

My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer, that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery - which was good for me, because I like to have something to prove.

Hold on to your passion - you'll need it!

Ever since we were little, we were so on fire for our dreams. We never let anyone blow our flames out.

If you tell me I can't do something, that's the worst thing to tell me. And that's what I tell girls, and what Beckham's about: you can do it, you can do it better, and you can do it in the way you want.

My advice would be to follow your dream. Most of my life, I was in second place before I came in first place. I hope that inspired people to never give up.

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.

I think that my biggest role models are people that have maybe struggled for a while and then finally gotten to their destination.

My advice is if you have to do music, then do it! There's no choice in your heart and your soul - unless you have that kind of great need, desire and determination, it's pretty tough out there!

I love doing a lot of things I'm told I can't do. I think that's what drives me and keeps me awake every day.

Telling me that I can't do something is probably the worst thing that anyone can say, because I'll definitely do it. I'm very determined.

I love it when people doubt me. It makes me work harder to prove them wrong.

Being 5' 10, I was supposed to be too short to play college volleyball. So that gave me the hunger and the fire to say, Oh yeah? I'd just hit the crap out of the ball.

What you need, above all else, is a love for your subject, whatever it is. You've got to be so deeply in love with your subject that when curve balls are thrown, when hurdles are put in place, you've got the energy to overcome them.

You just have to do your art. Nothing can stop you.