Tom Riley Quotes

People don't really know themselves until they're 30. Like most people nowadays, I went to university, got a degree and wandered for a bit. I trained to be a chartered accountant, which I didn't much enjoy, and it was only slowly that the idea of becoming a creative writer gelled.

Going to university is, and should be, so much more than a mechanical process of grinding out a degree qualification for a pre-determined career path.

Definitely working on 'Deal or No Deal' was a learning experience, and it helped me to understand what I would rather be doing.

I loved my boarding school, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't have a career.

For a long time, I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was desperate to find something that fit me and I just decided that if I could organically make a professional living out of the things that interested me, then I would be a happy person.

People go to college to find who they are as a person and find what they want to do in life, and I kind of already know that so it would be like I'd be taking a step back or something.

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.

When you're in college, you really don't know where you're going to end up, but you know who you want to be along that journey.

It was easy for me to leave acting for school, because I wasn't really in it as an adolescent for fulfilling reasons.

I think, ultimately, looking back now, acting wasn't satisfying me 100%.

I definitely felt by the time I got to grad school - which was a great experience - I was like, 'What's the difference between the teachers and the students? Why are the teachers teachers if they want to be acting?' It didn't make sense to me anymore. It's not like you learn how to set a broken bone and you get the stamp of approval.

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

I know from experience that careers do not always arise from a deep sense of destiny.

I would have gone to law school, or gotten a psychology degree. I wasn't interested in sleeping on a futon forever. And what happened is I walked into auditions, and I had nothing to lose, because I had a backup plan.

I went through a lot of occupations. I was questioning my contribution to the world.

I think you're lucky if you discover what you really love at a young age. College wasn't something I was going to do. I wanted to keep acting, and I didn't want to go to New York or California and pound the pavement.

I was in college that first semester, and I was like, 'Wow, this isn't who I am. This isn't what I want to do.' I was like, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to go out and make something of myself, and I have no clue what that is.'

I thought I wanted to be a lawyer and was going through this growth phase.

If the next thing I do is not necessarily filling the role of 'the future of journalism,' it'll probably be whatever is making me happiest, and that's enough for me.

I started a French degree at university, but packed it in when I realised I really wanted to be an actor.

I worked for a brief spell as a journalist, but soon I discovered that I didn't want to be a journalist - I wanted to be a historian.

I went to Carnegie Mellon and was an electrical engineer, but electrical engineering wasn't right for me.

After high school, I enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, but I stayed only a year and a half. I felt college was a waste of time; I wanted to start working.

I had years of experience that I still needed to accumulate and go through.

The person I am is who I am. My life is my career, my career is my life.