Donald E. Westlake Quotes

I worked as a parking lot attendant for a while and a delivery boy and two or three other things, but none of them seemed just right.

I was working at the NSA. I don't know, I was just bored. I just knew that's not what I was supposed to be doing with my life.

I left school at sixteen - I was fed up and restless. The only thing that interested me at school was English language and literature, but I didn't have Latin, and so couldn't go on to university. So I went to a few drama schools, not studying seriously; I was mostly in love at the time and tied up with that.

I've tried my hand at everything... trying to whittle down the right profession for myself. I tried my hand at clothes, I've modelled, but nothing really worked for me. I didn't really enjoy it, and maybe I was not really good enough.

I'd had a variety of jobs - shop assistant, writer of children's magazines - but had found myself, funnily enough, as quite an uninformed sports journalist so I might have stuck with that, but I would never have been very good at it.

I think I made the wrong career choice

My father was a frustrated writer. I think he wanted to write the great American novel.

I wish, in some ways, I was the type of comedian who could do something blistering and topical, but I'm the guy who gets stuck in the revolving door and thinks I should write about that.

I don't think, as a 15-year-old, you're that conscious about a lifetime career. I didn't think: "I'm a serious actor." I never studied acting or anything when I was that age.

I think I was about 16 when I first figured I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be a fighter pilot before that, but then I thought I don't want to kill people so that ruled that out.

I'd like to think that I have a plan, but you can't really pick what scripts you're going to get or what movie is going to come along.

I don't think I would ever be a doctor, but the reason I majored in science was because you could become a civil engineer, you could become a biologist, you could become a computer scientist - that was the point of it. I had no idea what I wanted to do. In my last two years of high school here happened to be these few scripts that I really responded to. Eventually, I landed the job, and that was something that I felt transcended whatever other people would think of me.

I think my mother became the muse because she had everything when she was in Hollywood: she had the marriage, the success, the money, all the films she wanted to do and yet even her, she had a longing and wanted to work with a film that had meaning, something more profound. And I think that was very touching to father.

I didn't have any career design. I was not thinking about publishing or doing a record. I was just working. I was evolving. I wanted to really comprehend what I was doing before stepping too far out.

Seriously, I don't consider myself a writer. I don't think I have writing talent. But I will continue to do it.

A lot of times, kids go to college and take a major because they do what they think they're supposed to do. I told them I believe 90 percent of America gets up in the morning and drives to a job they hate. That could have happened to me in the hotel industry.

I've done a lot of different things. I would say, it's really hard for me to say what the ultimate role would be. You look at a film if it comes to you.

I have no idea where my career is going. I just make the best music that I possibly can.

I walk around thinking job to job, trying to not have regrets.

For me, you go to university to meet lots of different people from different backgrounds. I think that's one of the most important things you get there. And you also get some sense of direction regarding what you want to do when you leave. I sort of know what I want to do in my life - I want to act and ultimately I'd like to write. And in terms of meeting people from different backgrounds, that's what you get on a film set. So the two most valuable things that university would have given me I've sort of achieved by being on a film set.

I'm probably, if I might, if I stray I might write, go into screenplay or do something in film. Something like that but I think I'm pretty much going to stick to what I'm good at.

It was always that I finished one movie and then had no idea what I was doing. I think there's a limited amount of planning you can do, at least in the position I'm in. Maybe more successful actors can plan more than I'm able to.

My non-career. My excuse for a career? Honestly, I never think about the word 'career.' I've had managers, the minute they say it to me, they look at me and just roll their eyes.

My idea of that[idea of career] is constantly changing. I mostly just throw it out to the universe and I can't really do much after that. I've never taken the steps to be "successful": I've never had a manager or signed to a publishing house. I've talked to people about it but I've never followed through because it gives me the creeps.

(The new boyfriend) knows I write every day for hours but has no idea that all I’m writing about is me. It seems wiser to let him think I’m an aspiring novelist instead of just an alcoholic with a year of sobriety who spends eight hours a day writing about the other 16.