Matt Long Quotes

I enjoyed living in Chicago and doing plays for little or no money. I never actually thought that I would leave Chicago, originally. I wasn't one of those people that had a plan to pack up the van and drive out to Hollywood. I didn't want to.

I had grand visions of being in professional sports. But when reality set in, I went, 'Oh, OK. I'll just move to Hollywood and be an actor.' I didn't want to look back on my life and wonder, 'What if I had done this? Or I had done that?'

Where I came from, the idea of going into show business was just ridiculous; in fact I didn't tell anybody because I knew people would laugh at me. So I sort of snuck around and got some pictures and got a resume together and, of course, lied and said I did all kinds of things I didn't do.

I don't have any regrets. When I quit college and moved to Los Angeles to become an actress, it was so that I would not look back and have any regrets.

I would hate to look back on my life and go, 'You know, I wanted to do a rock n' roll album. I should have, and I never did.'

Ultimately, I have one life, and you always regret the things you don't do.

From the age of 12, I had an understanding that singing was something I loved to do more than anything, and I did say to myself, 'Why not?' But there were definitely some doubts along the way.

I ask myself a lot of question about my work as an actress. We shall see. Plenty of friends tell me, 'Of course you must continue acting,' but I'm not sure.

When I was in college, I was debating to try my hand at show business, or to become a professor. I just thought of the risk of not going into show business and always wondering if I would've had a chance. Because that's where my real heart was.

I don't regret giving up football for acting. I love football and am very proud I played for Morton. But the truth is, I wasn't going to get much higher in football. At the same time, I sensed I could go somewhere in acting. I'm 28, which is young for acting, whereas in football I'd now be near the end of my career.

I was about to get a degree in economics when I accepted that I'd be a lousy businessman, and if I didn't give acting a try I'd regret it for the rest of my life.

I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn't.

The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized - never knowing.

Nothing seemed as scary as waking up at 40 and realizing that I had not lived a very courageous life.

I never really thought about being an actress or being anything like that. I was always a bit scared as well because of the thing about models becoming an actress and all that.

If only I'd stayed on the West Coast, I might have made something of myself.

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.

I think I've made some choices that maybe I wasn't so sure about for some reason or another. But I'm one of the lucky ones. Even when I was young, I played Bird, and that's a role people wait for their whole lifetime.

I don't regret anything I haven't done.

I was anxious before I decided to go back to acting about what I wanted to do with my life. Once I realized I was sort of interested in acting, I've been pretty lucky and had all these great parts. And I feel pretty much like, 'What will happen will happen.'

I've discovered people in my lifetime who are like, 'I always wanted to sing but... ' It's like, 'Well then, did you try?' My thing was always not caring about failure.

Life is too short to be scared and not take risks. I'd rather be the person that's like, 'I messed up,' than, 'I wish I did that.'

I'm not really one for regrets, but one thing I do wish is that I'd gone down south sooner.

I don't want things that I regret in life, and things that I have not done - and I don't want to at 80 years wake up, and tell myself: 'Oh I was on top of my shape and skills and I didn't do it.'

When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor. I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be an actor.' That's what I did.