Alan Sugar Quotes

If you have a level of expectation in your life that you have to be a quote-unquote star, whatever that means, you might be setting yourself up for failure.

Failure was built into it by an extraordinary of exaggerated expectations.

I wanted to be famous. It's embarrassing to admit, but I came out to L.A. thinking it would happen in no time. I thought, 'Once they see me, they'll be so glad I came.' I always had a ridiculous amount of self-confidence about what was going to happen to me.

Every new invention is like a baby. You think it may cure cancer or become the president, but in the end, you're happy it just stays out of jail.

When you're in your 20s, your 30s, even, you have - at least, I had - vast ambitions, and you sit around mooning about these things, and you're depressed, because you haven't done them. And it takes you a long time to come to the realization that if you can't be John Updike, well, then, you can't.

Writing on assignment, with lots of money handed to you before you even began, got very scary for me. My dread of not being perfect, something I got from a childhood surrounded by powerful, successful people, began to infect everything I wrote.

You're only as good as your last collection, which is an enormous pressure.

The reality of the writer's world is that you set yourself up for future disappointment with every success that you deliver because you end up raising your audience's expectations.

It was total naivety that got me to Hollywood. I thought it was going to happen straight away. I told myself 'give it 5 years, there's no way I'll be here after that if it doesn't happen'. Cut to ten years later!

I guess, at the beginning of any project, I always have the same hope, which is that it's going to be wildly successful and critically acclaimed, and it'll be a major thing.

I feel overestimated.

Perfectionism rarely begets perfection, or satisfaction - only disappointment.

I felt like in Tampa Bay a lot of people thought we were overachieving.

Everybody's got high expectations for me. I just don't want to let anybody down.

Challenge negative forces with hope, self-confidence and conviction. I believe that ambition and initiative will ultimately triumph.

I believe in the perfect outcome in every area of my life! Expect to be successful! Expect to win!

Keep expectation alive. Keep stirring it up. Let much promise more, and great deeds herald greater.

Hope animates the wise, and lures the presumptuous and indolent who repose inconsiderately on her promises.

If you try to make interesting films, you're going to be disappointed most of the time. I choose just not to look at it that way.

God help the troubadour who tries to be a star. The more that you try to find success, the more that you will fail.

Maybe it was just me shorting myself to hedge my expectations. As a fan, I was excited about the project. If you look at the body of work for the people involved, I was excited about the project, but I didn't really know. There were people saying, "I think we're going to be part of something huge."

If we don't build a company as influential as Google or Facebook, then we failed. I'm, like, perpetually stressed, honestly.

There's a funny thing about fame. The truth is you run as fast as you can towards it because it's everything you want. Not just the fame but what it represents, meaning work, meaning opportunity. And then you get there, and it's shocking how immediately you become enveloped in this world that is incredibly restricting.

I've always had a loud mouth, and for that I've gotten a lot of attention. I did falter in some big competitions in my career, but being counted out and not being seen as a threat is something I'm used to.

You know, you want everything you do, obviously, to be a success critically and commercially. But what you find out as you go along is that everything won't.