Amy Poehler Quotes

I think we should stop asking people in their 20s what they 'want to do' and start asking them what they don't want to do. Instead of asking students to 'declare their major' we should ask students to 'list what they will do anything to avoid.' It just makes a lot more sense.

When I started Teach For America, I wasn't trying to come up with an idea that would change the world. I was trying to solve a problem much closer to home: I was a senior in college, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life!

Learning what you don't want to do is pretty valuable, it may be as valuable as figuring out what it is you do want to do.

I have reached a place in my life where I need to sit down and say, 'Well, what do I do? What's best for me?' I need to look into options for the future.

I've got, like, too many things that I'd like to try and do, so I'm trying to figure out where the natural pull is strongest.

I studied law, economy, international relations, communications, in order to find what I would do. It's the hardest thing, being 17 and trying to find what to do in life. You've explored so little. I'm lucky: My parents let me explore.

Most of my friends between 21 and 31 are at different stages of figuring out what the hell they are going to do with their lives. It's a big part of our generation. What is the next step?

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.

It's always good to find out what you don't want to do.

I think it's unreasonable to expect kids at 17 to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives. And actually, I guess I had a desire to be an artist, and I did enroll in art school out of high school.

What do you want? What do you want your life to be? What do you want your testimony to be? Go for it!

I always thought I'd be a coach, but I'm still open to everything.

I think being in the city is the perfect way to figure out what I want to do.

I had always wanted to go to college but found my life taking a different path.

I think when you are young and you don't really know what you want in life, you can commit to something and think at the time it is right.

My career direction has probably been guided as much by curiosity and my personality as by my early influences.

Lot of people know very early what they want, but I didn't know I wanted acting.

But everything that I did starting out, every job that I had, I haven't regretted any of them. They've all been informative, interesting in one way or another. With a career, I think there's this idea that you're just trying to get somewhere. It's like, "Oh, okay, let's keep going, because if I do this, I can get this, I get this, this." It wasn't that way. I did what I wanted to do when it was in front of me, and I'm trying to continue to do that.

I think it's a big mistake to decide too soon what you're going to do with your life.

I have so many friends who have no idea what they want to do. They are out of college and working, but not sure they are doing what they want to do, which is normal.

I was never really sure what I wanted to do - I'm in awe of these people who knew at age 10 or 12 they wanted to be a brain surgeon, and they did it, and they still are.

In 10 years, I don't really know what I'll be, and I like not having any idea. I like the idea of being so passionate about everything I do and the fact that I might wake up tomorrow and say 'I want to be a chef,' and just pour myself into that.

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

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

I figured out early on what I wanted to do.