Dara Khosrowshahi Quotes

My mother wanted me to be a teacher. She had this vision of me walking across the quadrangle in an Oxford college wearing my academic gown.

In fact, both my parents were doctors but I was a duffer.

I remember that when I was little, my parents felt that I should study to become a teacher. They thought football was a waste of time and I'd never succeed at it.

My parents told me I must get married. I was seen as a failure if I didn't do it.

My father said writing was a nice hobby. He strongly encouraged my brother and me to become doctors.

Being from a very traditional Chinese-American family, my parents believed the only options to have a successful life were to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or a business person.

My dad, of course, like a lot of Asian parents, wanted me to be an engineer or doctor and never could understand why I would want to be a lawyer. And then, when I first said I wanted to run for office, he thought that was absolutely insane.

He didn't want me to become a musician, he wanted me to be a doctor, because he said singing was too hard.

My dad was Chinese-American and very conservative when it came to his family's futures. He said if I wanted to have a secure job, I should go into science. So I did what Dad said and went to medical school, but the writing bug never left me.

My dad wanted me to go down a more academic route. He is very much about sticking to the rule book and sticking to the blueprint of a successful career.

I wanted to be an actor ever since I got on stage for the first time, aged 13. Before that, I thought I might follow in the medical footsteps of my parents: my father was a doctor, my mother a pharmacist.

I had parents who believed I could do anything - and I know how that made me feel. I think both my parents, having careers in the medical profession, feel they are helping people on a daily basis, and that was inculcated in me as a value. I had to struggle with giving up the idea of becoming a doctor myself.

I wanted to be a writer, and my mother was like, 'No, why don't you become a lawyer?' That sort of thing.

Nobody just leaves medical school, especially given it's fiercely competitive to get in. But I had a sister who was a doctor, another who was a pharmacist, a brother who was an engineer. So my parents already had sensible children who would be able to make an actual living, and I think they felt comfortable sacrificing their one strange child.

My mum was always more pushing me towards the academic side; she wasn't really interested in me having a professional football career.

I thought I had everything going for me. I wasn't listening to nobody. And my dad was like, 'Uh-uh, you can't make money from music. You have to be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer. Something that's going to do something for this world. Music doesn't do anything.' And I had to fight that, his passion, and fight the society that I was from.

My parents wanted me to get a degree.

As an African, there are certain professions your family want you to do or are willing to sign off. Being in the medical professional, as a doctor, pharmacist, a nurse, or being an engineer - those are the only professions allowed!

My family is a conservative one. They don't want me to join films and I also go by their wishes.

For a lot of children of immigrants, what happens is your parents want you to do something very linear that they can understand. I had an aptitude in sciences and never really questioned it.

I told my mom for years that I wanted to be a manicurist, and she'd always be like, 'But what if you went to college and you got a degree?' She'd try to explain how I could actually do a thing that would make me a ton of money, or that I didn't have to just pick the business that was closest to our house.

My family's very medical, so as a field, that, I think, it's so important and wonderful, something I'm definitely interested in. Just not for a living!

I was pre-med at Glasgow University. I was from a family who were of the mind that if you were clever enough to be a doctor or a lawyer, why wouldn't you be?

It is kind of a cliche that many Indian parents, especially in the U.S., want their kids to become doctors or engineers. But my parents encouraged me to turn to music when they found that I had the passion and talent.

It's funny 'cos I think a lot about kids who grow up with their parents being really important members of their fields, and they just go the opposite way.