Michael Parenti Quotes

A lot of the reason I wanted to become an entrepreneur and avoid working for others is that you get to create the world you want to live in and the company you want to work for, and I've loved that. It's a part of entrepreneurship that women should really embrace.

Ultimately, I think what I want from my career is to be able to create work for myself, and there's only so much you can do as an actor in a movie.

I love working for myself. I've grown to dislike the Hollywood machine. Too much bull, disappointment, and quite frankly, untalented, mindless, and hugely disrespectful people involved in the process. I'll take carrying the load on my back, all the way up Everest if needed, to be able to steer away from it.

My dream was to not work for anyone. There's only so many things I was good at - and how am I not going to work for anyone? I just don't want people telling me what to do.

When I first quit my day job, I was terrified. I called my editors and said I'm trying to make a go of this, and they threw every contract at me they could. And for two years, I had a book or an anthology out every month.

My last real job was selling air time for CBS affiliates. I quit that when I was 28, and that was the last real job I had. I beat the system. I've been able to do this full-time for almost 15 years.

I'm lucky to not have a real job, to be able to express myself, be creative and be relevant.

To me, success was not having to have a boss and not having a day job. I've been living my own version of success since the early '90s when I first got signed. I haven't had a job since then.

I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job.

I haven't been silent. I teach, I lecture at universities, I write, I'm not silent.

At 27, it's great to get to a place where I'm not an actor for hire anymore.

I didn't want to go to college or work in an office or have a nine-to-five job. I knew that quite clearly before I left school.

I opted for a freelance writing career. I was lucky enough to have the means to do it.

Now, I am completely independent - I earn my living by speaking and writing.

I'm pretty grounded on my own passion - writing books, you know, doing programs, speaking around the country. And I love what I do.

I always feel freelance writers are leading a heroic life. I think that is the real writer's life. On the other hand, it's good to have another job. It gives you something to do.

I had always wanted to run my own show and focus solely on the writing, and that's what 'Survivor's Remorse' has been for me.

I've been living the American Dream for over 25 years - just being able to do what I do, be creative, and make money out of it. It's incredible.

I never wanted to work a 9 to 5. I was always a different kid in class.

That first morning that I woke up self-employed, terror quickly consumed me. I found myself sitting with my laptop and realized, for the first time, that I was entirely responsible for all of my own decisions, as well as the consequences of those decisions.

I always wanted to be in charge of my own career. I like having my own imprint.

The feeling, the sensation behind it is, it's exciting to cherry pick and select and be your own boss and to be in control of your own brand; however, it's a lot of work.

I closed my own jazz bar so I could be a man who can write novels as I like. I was pleased about that. This pleasure was connected to the pleasure of writing.

And old Dave, he'd go up to his room, y'understand, put on his green velvet slippers - I'll never forget - and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want.

There was one person who greatly and directly benefited my career--my agent Virginia Kidd. From 1968 to the late nineties she represented all my work, in every field except poetry. I could send her an utterly indescribable story, and she'd sell it to Playboy or the Harvard Law Review or Weird Tales or The New Yorker--she knew where to take it. She never told me what to write or not write, she never told me, That won't sell, and she never meddled with my prose.