Ruth Westheimer Quotes

When I came back into show business in '88 after spending 20-odd years in the civil service, it wasn't planned.

When I started at 'SNL,' I was lucky to start early. So now starting on 'Update,' I am the age when most people are when they start doing that. It feels like a different world and capacity, like starting over in another challenge. A heightened challenge.

I didn't become an actor until I was an old man of 28 or 29. I declared to the world that I was an actor. Nobody heard me, but I did declare it.

I was 40 when I did my first movie.

My second or third year in the engineering department, I got very frustrated, and I sat down with myself and had a soul-searching conversation with myself and said, 'What I'd really like to do is see if I can write comedy.' ... I moved to L.A. stone cold. Didn't know anybody; didn't know how to go about it. Really started from scratch.

As I grew older, I worked less as an actor and as a model, and I went back to what I had tried to do when I was young but wasn't really available. I'm so glad now to be in my sixties and to be able to go back to school.

I started studying at 26. Before that, I never thought of acting as something that I would ever try.

I see a lot of people who change careers in the middle of their life and they think it's a good idea to come in the kitchen.

I started late. I didn't make my first movie until I was 40.

I'd retired for about six or seven years. Coming back to the business, I found that I was sort of not quite a has-been, and it wasn't a new career, it was just kind of difficult to crack the nut, so to speak.

Because my career has been based so much on my looks, when I finally pass my 'sell-by' date, I think I'll probably pack it in. Unless I make the changeover into playing witches or something, I don't see what career I can have.

Getting into television was a total fluke.

Meanwhile after failing the bar twice, I knew some people in New York and moved here in August '71.

I started out myself rather late you see, I was 18.

I left Indiana, and I ain't been back since. I've been doing comedy and paying my bills.

I first thought about becoming a writer after the age of 30, which is rather late, I'd say. In my 20s, I wasn't especially good at anything, and I didn't have a lot of experiences. I was just a young woman without a good job.

I think people thought I was crazy for leaving Mexico when I had any project I wanted falling at my feet. But I risked everything to come to Los Angeles, where no one knew who I was, and start all over again. It was a very hard step to take. However, it was the moment I thought it was right to take a risk in my career.

It's been dawning on me slowly that for the past 35 years I have been cast against type, and I'm finally getting to do what I really wanted to do.

I didn't actually begin professionally acting until I was 30.

At almost forty years old, I assumed my career on camera was over. And I was certainly given that message by all the TV managers and news directors who passed on me when I was trying to get a job back in the business.

A lot of our writers, like Conan O'Brien, moved on to other things.

I came to acting quite late. I tried not to be an actor.

I didn't plan to be a director until I was 35. For years I wanted to do anything but!

I couldn't get any of the ingenue roles when younger because at 5 feet 9 inches with a deep voice I was always too... genue. My career has completely happened since I was 29.

At some point in your career, maybe you, too, have made the life-altering decision to start anew. If so, you know first-hand how exciting, challenging, and sometimes disorienting the first 30, 60, 90 days can be.