Lauren Groff Quotes

I stopped working a few years ago because I just lost a spark that I'd had before. I thought I'd just try writing, and maybe start directing, but I did it very quietly.

Since I quit banking, all my major life decisions, when they could, have revolved around writing.

I've always liked to write, but I never thought I could make a career out of it.

For a person whose sole burning ambition is to write - like myself - college is useless beyond the Sophomore year.

My sophomore English teacher encouraged me to write for the school paper, and that's what got me started. Suddenly it struck me that being a writer could be a romantic and adventurous position. Previously, I had thought I would be a tennis pro, giving lessons at a local club. I thought that would be a good life, and it might have been.

I did not consider that I would lead a literary life. I'd thought initially, as a young girl, that I would be a teacher, since I so admired many of my teachers. And though I loved writing, I did not ever think of myself as a writer.

I told everyone that acting's for losers and I needed to get an education. But something kept telling me to give it one last chance. In the end, I lasted a month on the M.B.A. and then decided to quit, come back to L.A., and try again.

If I did anything 'next', I would do writing.

Have confidence in your strengths, dear writer, or give it all up now and create apps instead.

I dropped off my kids from 10 to 2, went to the library, and just wrote. This is my second career - I'm 41 - and I'm a terrible speller.

Although my other ambition was to be a musical theater star (and I would attend college on a voice scholarship), writing was never far from my mind.

I've wanted to write ever since I've gotten into comics. I wrote little things for myself when I was doing mini-comics and things, before becoming a professional. But I just figure at some point or another, I've got to make the leap. I just have to do it.

My father came to Chennai at the age of 16 from a village in Coimbatore. He was an artist and was clear he wanted to do something, so he came to Chennai and joined an art course for eight years before he came into films.

Although I still occasionally paint and draw, my life has now been shaped by my writing.

My day jobs... I knew I was bad at those, so I didn't really have the confidence to think that I could do comedy. But I knew I hated the day jobs.

Like most people, I was not able to start selling my stories right away. So I had many other jobs along the way to becoming a writer, including toy maker, gravedigger, cookware salesman, and assembly line worker. Eventually, I became an elementary teacher and worked with second and fourth graders.

I wanted to find something I was passionate about, something with the possibility of upward movement, and I wanted freedom. I need to be outside living life, not stuck in an office. I figured I could either be out selling condos in Miami, or I could move to L.A. and chase after that elusive actor's job.

I dreamed of being an actress when I was a little kid because you don't know then that the writer writes everything the actor is saying. But as I got older, I got into college and became more aware that writing is another option, and I started getting into it, too.

I always wanted to be an actor, but with a speech impediment it's kind of tough. I decided to roll the dice and take an acting class, which was very, very nerve-wracking... my stomach would just be in knots.

John Wells let me write a couple of West Wings, which was an incredible gift. I loved it once I got past the brain injury part of it, and so I'm working on a couple of things that are far from fruition, but what I want to pursue.

If, after five years, I hadn't had anything published, I was just going to forget it and go back to TV full-time until I retired or they put me out to pasture.

Acting has always been a strong force in my life, but it was hard to change direction. I didn't make a paycheck for two years.

I remember moving out to L.A. straight after college and just starting to try to write scripts and trying to get stuff off the ground.

It took me a long time to even dare to envision myself as a writer. I was very uncertain and hesitant and afraid to pursue a creative life.

I had started out my grown-up life in New York City, but I couldn't figure out how to be an actor there. And so I had been a magazine illustrator instead.