Atul Gawande Quotes

I didn't dream about being a director. I didn't know I wanted to do something with film until the summer between my sophomore and junior years at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

You know, both my parents aren't really from this country, and the emphasis was really on education and studying, and TV seemed like it was not the best use of my time for my parents. So ironically, of course, I rebelled completely and now it's how I make a living.

While my mother wanted me to be a musician, I wanted to become an electronic engineer.

I did a law degree but was miserable the whole time. I was supposed to join a law firm in London but instead went to Oxford to do a master's in philosophy.

I'm rebelling against being handed a career, like, 'You're the next this; you're the next that.' I'm not the next anything, I'm the first me. I can't be myself, I can't just be Idris Elba. But that's just the nature of the business.

Although I did end up trying out several different fields before committing to acting, I knew in the deepest part of heart that I wanted to be an actress.

When I decided to become an actress, I think I let some people down. It was a kind of rebellion.

Many people find their calling very early in their lives. These are the kind of people we read about in school books and newspapers. Then there are some who don't have a clue of what they want to do in their lives; I am belong to the latter category.

I went to college thinking of maybe pursuing a career in film criticism.

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.

For a long time I thought I should be a civil engineer. That seemed to be the only thing worth doing, and I chose the wrong subjects at A-level. I read all the sciences to start with, and then had to admit, 'This isn't what I want to do' and changed course.

I didn't feel like I was meant to be a nurse or a secretary.

I didn't try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

My parents owned a pharmacy in Budapest, which gave us a comfortable living. As I was their only child, they wanted me to become a pharmacist. But my own preference would have been to study philosophy and mathematics.

Eventually, I had to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. I needed to find my way back to Fleetwood Mac.

I had no idea when I graduated from high school and then from graduate school what I wanted to do with my life. I had no idea that I was ever going to be an actor.

I am very lucky that I came from a stable home, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life until acting sorted of landed in my lap when I was in my 20s. Acting, to me, was a bit like the ladder I used to climb out of feeling lost.

When I started with 'Cocktail,' I was trying to figure out if this was something I wanted to do.

In school, all my teachers and my mum were super routing for me to study at Oxford. I picked music as a career choice, and this didn't sit too well with them!

I knew from a young age what I wanted to do, but that's not the case for everyone. Some go through different paths to reach their destination.

I was very good in school, and my parents really would have really liked me to go to college. Instead, I went on this random journey to go be a professional wrestler.

My mum wanted me to be a doctor like my dad, and at 7, I really wanted to be a politician, and I managed in my mind to combine the two.

Everyone always says, 'You must have always wanted to be just like your dad.' But my dad's career had nothing to do with my journey.

I left Norway after high school and moved to Manhattan and went to film school in Manhattan. That's when I really found out that this was my calling and what I wanted to do.

I could never really decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, and for a while, I thought that maybe I wanted to be a writer... I've always loved to write, that form of expression.