Cy Coleman Quotes

Father, in spite of all this spending of money in learning Latin, I will be a painter.

I got a sociology degree and then had an opportunity to go to graduate school. But I said no, because I wanted to give songwriting a shot.

My father was a television director and producer, working on documentaries and current affairs programmes including 'Panorama,' and I didn't think he'd find acting a sensible option. But as soon as I'd finished my A-levels, I got on a train to Edinburgh, and that was it.

All my graduation money went to paying for bartending classes so I could have a side gig. I bartended for two months before I was supposed to move to New York and then two months later I got the job as an understudy in 'Sister Act' and haven't looked back since.

So when I told my parents I wanted to go into acting because I was flunking out of my first year of junior college, they were relieved that I had picked something other than joining the army. But I can't imagine how they had high hopes for me.

Another thing that was unique about working on this stuff was that I was engineering it. I used many of the things I had learned while I was away from the band. It sort of vindicated my decision to leave in '87.

It wasn't that I left acting; it's just that I put it aside while I set about becoming a comic.

I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down.

I had been in a band in college. You kind of need to make a choice between going the music route or going the acting route. I chose acting, figuring I could always do the music on my own.

I'm lucky enough to be doing my dream job, but my second dream job would be to be a concert pianist.

I never planned to be a model at all. I moved to Paris to study art, and I was there working as an artist, taking classes, and I had a little sick dog that I was using up all of my money to try and heal. It was right at that point that this photographer, Errol Sawyer, saw me at the phoning office and convinced me to let him take my photo.

I said, I'm on this TV show and I love doing it, but I don't want to be known always as the silly 'Scrubs' guy... So part of me was like, You know what? Life's short. Let's go for it.

In my life, my parents wanted me to be a musician, I was supposed to go to Vienna to study piano. But this train wanted to go in another direction.

My future plans are hazy, and I've yet to experience how much cartooning is in my blood and therefore how much I'll miss it. But I have some other interests, especially in music, and I will probably take the opportunity to delve into those things more deeply.

I struggled to keep one foot in music and one in academia. I had worked on my Ph.D. for three years full time before I realized Bad Religion could be a legitimate career.

But we were doing plays and movies which I had nothing to do with other than being a producer, and I don't have that kind of interest or time any more.

I did 'Degrassi' for five years in Toronto, and I made the decision to quit the show to go to theatre school, which a lot of people thought I was really crazy to do, but it was one of those major decisions in my life that I haven't regretted - hopefully I won't! I really wanted to go to school.

By the end of high school, I had this fork-in-the-road moment where part of me considered going to vocational music school to really pursue it.

I moved to Manchester to join a band and ended up getting into acting, and I moved back to London to become an actor and ended up joining a band.

When I graduated college, I had a fairly successful weekly club gig and was buying more studio equipment and writing my own music. I realized I didn't want to work.

I wanted to be a painter when I was a kid. And then, I had to make a living. I had a child when I was in high school, so I kind of had that work phase in my life.

I was focused on either being a social worker or physiotherapist. That was the direction I was going until I met a girl who wanted to be an actress, and I wanted to be close to the girl, so I followed her into an audition.

I was always excited by the idea of having my own company, but models are rarely serious when they venture off into something else, be it acting, singing, or starting their own business.

You have to choose whether to take the money or follow your own ambitions, playing in the best league in the world and winning titles.

I graduated high school a year early and moved to Los Angeles to go to acting school, which is hilarious.