Ardal O'Hanlon Quotes

When I was in art school, I worried that being a painter seemed like it could be an elusive dream, and fashion seemed so much more secure.

Of course, you would have to be insane to hope your child grows up to be a playwright or poet. Given the odds, you would have to be quite cavalier about your children's future.

It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn't think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer.

My parents did not discourage me but could not understand how I could make a living by art. Their idea of an artist was a person who was condemned to starvation.

I don't know if acting is what I want to do for the rest of my life, it's just what I've, you know, ended up doing when I was little, and I've kinda grown up with it.

My family thought it was insanity for me to go into the theater rather than to get an education.

I think it's unreasonable to expect kids at 17 to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives. And actually, I guess I had a desire to be an artist, and I did enroll in art school out of high school.

I had no idea when I graduated from high school and then from graduate school what I wanted to do with my life. I had no idea that I was ever going to be an actor.

What I can control is me playing basketball and how I treat my family and how I raise my child in the time that I have to spend on this earth. You know what I mean? I can't control what happens with trades.

I know that my father was a little nervous about me pursuing a career in the arts.

I had a one-year-old son. How will my failure or success limit what he becomes? I was trying to write screenplays. It doesn't pay very well until you sell one. I was poor.

My mom always worked, and I certainly don't want to look back and think, 'Well, I don't have kids, but I'm glad I did that sitcom.'

I actually went to study journalism at Northwestern, thinking that would be my Plan B for a career. But then I realized, if I'm going to struggle and make no money, I might as well do what I really want to do.

You want a career? Do that first. You don't want to have kids? Then don't. You don't want to get married? Then don't. But once you do something, you've got to know that there is compromise.

I never had to say to myself, 'OK now, I've got to grow up and work for a bank, or go and sell real estate.' I never had to make that kind of break.

It's the typical mid-life crisis kind of thing, where you just stop and wonder, 'Should I go back to university and get a law degree?' I kind of looked around me and thought, 'What kind of idiot am I that I've just spent the last 10 years writing novels? Financially, I'm pretty much where I was when I was 28.'

My parents were so far from the music world that they couldn't conceive how you could make a living. But for me, it was the only solution for the rest of my life.

I am insecure about tomorrow. Will I get another job? Will it be appreciated? I will pursue acting for as long as I have a face and body that is acceptable to the people, but I still worry that if I don't do better tomorrow, it will all go away.

Everyone in my family went to college. So I went for a year to appease people, in a way. I didn't really see that being my path, but I did want to be sure, as well, about that. When I was, that's when I left.

I don't know if I will be acting all my life, honestly.

I'm not great at judging a career. Or planning one.

The one mistake I will always kick myself for is not doing 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?' It was written for me.

Have you ever asked yourselves what you are going to do when you grow up? In all likelihood you will get married, and before you know where you are, you will be mothers and fathers; and you will then be tied to a job, or to the kitchen, in which you will gradually wither away. Is that all that your life is going to be?

I knew I wasn't going to be a rocket scientist - let's not be fools - but I wasn't going to be a bum.

I was anxious before I decided to go back to acting about what I wanted to do with my life. Once I realized I was sort of interested in acting, I've been pretty lucky and had all these great parts. And I feel pretty much like, 'What will happen will happen.'