James McAvoy Quotes

I realized during my time as a chaplain that I didn't want to be a minister.

I truly believe that God brought this, Dorothy Day script to me, because for a long time up until I was in eight grade - I wanted to be a nun.

If you're suddenly doing something you don't want to do for four years, just so you've got something to fall back on, by the time you come out you don't have that 16-year-old drive any more and you'll spend your life doing something you never wanted to do in the first place.

I know where I'm going to be, I'm not traveling here and there and everywhere. That didn't necessarily prompt me to it but it definitely opened up my mind of saying okay, maybe this is a good time to do this.

I didn't think I was an actor and fought it for a long time. Nobody paid for that but me.

It took me a long time to find out that I was born to be an actor. It was the last thing on my list, although my list was very small. I didn't know what to do. But kids weren't supposed to know what to do back then; we were all cute and we'd find out what we'd do later in life.

At a certain age it just became apparent to me that this was probably the work that I would have to do.

At different points in my life, I had grappled with the idea of going into the priesthood - in high school or law school. Where it ends, I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it ends with death, grappling with one's spirituality.

And I definitely wanted to be a writer, but I felt a duty now, having used up those educational resources, I felt a duty to the church and my parents to become a priest.

I figured out early on what I wanted to do.

I wanted to be a Priest at one point. I was pretty religious. I was an altar boy, and I was good at it. Then, I started meeting girls and I'm like 'You know, maybe I shouldn't be a Priest.'

You know, I'm still deciding what I'm going to be when I grow up.

What is the distance between here and there, between now and then, between right and wrong? In Greg Baxter's pellucid first novel, 'The Apartment,' it may be simply the length of a day - but a day in which one travels surprisingly far, literally and figuratively.

I wasn't meant to be an attorney, but I was meant to go to law school.

Being an artist is being at the service of yourself; I am at the service of other people.

The truly longstanding tradition in the church is that some are called to celibacy. Some feel called to it. But the church has never supported that celibacy be mandated for someone not called to it. It's never imposed on someone.

By the time I'm 40, interplanetary travel will be common. Nobody will want to talk to me at that age, anyway.

Many people find their calling very early in their lives. These are the kind of people we read about in school books and newspapers. Then there are some who don't have a clue of what they want to do in their lives; I am belong to the latter category.

And so um, I knew that I really didn't want to be a priest and didn't want to be a celibate, though I could probably manage it. Um, and um, ultimately I left.

For a long time I thought I should be a civil engineer. That seemed to be the only thing worth doing, and I chose the wrong subjects at A-level. I read all the sciences to start with, and then had to admit, 'This isn't what I want to do' and changed course.

I studied with the idea of becoming a Catholic priest.

By the time I was ready for college, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I think I secretly wanted a show business career, but I was suppressing it.

So I was very close to ordination. I was delighted to be ordained a deacon, which is the last step between, before becoming a priest. But then it all fell apart.

I knew after my first lesson what I wanted to do with my life.

By the time I grew up, acting just seemed like something I'd already done. I had absolutely no interest in it, even though some people thought it would be my calling.