Jeffrey Eugenides Quotes

What did my parents say when I told them I wanted to be an actor? 'Be a plumber.'

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

Though I technically come from a film family, my father had stopped making films even before my brother and I were born. So I did not really grow up in a filmi environment. And when I was growing up, becoming an actress was still quite a taboo. And you may not believe this, but even my father did not want me to join films.

I always wanted to be acting but...my parents (who are Cambodian) wanted me to be something else with more stability, like a doctor or lawyer. My heart wasn't in that and I'm really glad I followed my heart.

'This is America,' my father used to say to me, 'and in this country, a smart young fellow like you can grow up and do just about anything.' My dad, no doubt, was thinking doctor, lawyer, teacher, scientist or businessman. I was thinking second baseman, New York Yankees.

When I was little, I thought about becoming a lawyer like my parents, and my mother would always tell me, "You can do anything you want - except be a lawyer."

My parents’ biggest thing was that they just wanted me to graduate high school and go to college. They couldn’t fathom me acting for the rest of my life.

If any child of mine becomes an actor I will turn in my grave.

My parents are amazing, but when I was like, 'Well, I'm going to be an actress,' and they're all doctors, that wasn't the best and easiest thing to do. I'm sure that I probably went through a year period when I wasn't telling them exactly what I was doing. But that's going to evolve.

When we were starting off as kids, just the idea of maybe going to do this as a living instead of getting what we thought was going to be a boring job, was exciting.

My parents never pressured me except to advise me against acting.

I remember when I was 12, talking with my friends about what we wanted to do with our lives, astronauts, forensic detectives, all these different jobs. And the only thing I could think was an actor.

When I was about 12, I came home from middle school and told my parents I wanted to be an actor. My father didn't say it to me, but he told my mom, 'No. I'm not going to allow that. He'll starve to death.' I grew up in a small town in Illinois where being an actor was not something people did.

My father was so against me becoming an actor.

My father, a musician who worked with All India Radio, is no more. My mother had a government job at BSNL and was always opposed to my career in acting. She had seen the life my father had lived and did not like it.

I always knew that I wanted to be an actor. I made my debut on stage when I was 12, and I was sure that this is what made me happy. However, nobody takes a 12-year-old's career choice seriously. Everybody laughed it off. I also ran away from it, but acting eventually found me.

I wanted to act since I was 14, but I was dissuaded by my mother for various reasons. She told me I would be stereotyped.

When I was growing up my parents never thought I would be an actor.

My father was not really pleased when I told him of my choice to train as an actress, when he was with us in this dimension.

After kids leave the house, they can decide to do whatever they want, but while they're under my roof, they're going to be lawyers or writers or something, something important, anything except actors.

Isn't a kid alive who doesn't dream about rewarding her folks, or punishing them.

And I don’t want to turn actress. I want to do both. I wouldn’t have built the confidence to do acting if I didn’t model.

My father wanted to be an actor, dreamed about being an actor, but he gave it up because my mom and his family told him, "You're never going to make it; it's too tough out there."

I think I was about 16 when I first figured I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be a fighter pilot before that, but then I thought I don't want to kill people so that ruled that out.

My parents are going to kill me!" "That seems rather harsh.