John L. Phillips Quotes

When I finished high school, it was clear to me that I would study mathematics, even if I also considered economics and psychology.

Towards the end of the military service, I had to make what I assume has been the most important decision in my career: to start a residency in clinical medicine, in surgery, which was my favorite choice, or to enroll into graduate school and start a career in scientific research. It was clear to me that I was heading for graduate school.

I was influenced by many, many different people in my student years, and I was always, I guess, immersed in a Navy environment, and so, obviously, that had a big impact when I decided what I wanted to do was go and be a Navy pilot. I was very familiar with the Navy community and felt very comfortable with it.

I thought I wanted to be a brain surgeon until I realized all the schooling it required. I didn't like school very much so I had to come up with something else.

I was involved in music, acting, and some running, but my firm wish was to become a doctor. That was the formative age when I had decided on the pattern of my career.

I don't want to be an editor - I want to be really forward about that. I would be a horrible editor.

I had higher math SATs than in English - yet I became an English major in college.

I really wanted to be veterinarian, but I got a 410 on my math SATs.

My first degree came years before my second. I had wanted to be a physicist, but I flunked calculus.

I wasn't tempted to go into academia for a second.

I accept a role only if it's something I really, really like.

I could have seen myself going into academia, but I don't love it; I just like it.

Initially I had intended to study medicine, but before going to University I had decided that I would be better suited to a career in which I could concentrate my activities and interests more on a single goal than appeared to be possible in my father's profession.

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 never even wanted to be an actress. I studied mass communication and wanted to study law in Newcastle, for which I even got a scholarship. But by then, I had started modelling. So, I took a year off to decide what to do. But once you are used to working, it's difficult to get back to studies.

If I hadn't gone to Stanford, I'd be working at P&G now.

So I decided on science when I was in college.

When I finished high school, I was 16, and in Argentina you have to choose a career right after high school. There is no such thing as a liberal arts education.

Very early, I thought I would go into music, but I was aware that it would bring a set of obstacles I didn't find particularly attractive. Also, I'm not a great performer! For a while, I thought I would do something in landscape gardening. But it was always fashion for me.

I had cooked a lot in restaurants, in Rocky Point and on golf courses on Long Island, and my mother said, 'Be a chef,' and my dad said, 'Be a lawyer.' But instead, I auditioned for N.Y.U.'s Tisch School of the Arts.

My dad was a builder, so I didn't have any connection to the arts at all. I never really considered film as a career, but I knew I didn't want to be a builder.

I majored in business at LSU before I left.

I think there's this assumption that everybody would rather be a director, and I don't know that that's the case for me, so we'll see.

I'm not going to sit here and go to college for something that I don't care about.

I did not choose acting as a career.