Leonard Mlodinow Quotes

Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity that was at hand.

Nashville, there's people that are ten times more talented than me, ten times better singer than me, song writer than me, but for some reason you get the ball, and now - and now you run with it. And you do the best you can.

Like everyone else, I try to do quality work with great directors. But much of it has to do with luck.

There is never just one thing that leads to success for anyone. I feel it always a combination of passion, dedication, hard work, and being in the right place at the right time.

Talent is crucial. It needs to be driven by motivation, but blind ambition isn't the key.

You make your own luck by working hard, you know?

I did work incredibly hard but I think there's a certain element of luck.

To get to the top, you must put in a lot of hard work, but you also need to be blessed with talent.

No magic wands have been waved in my direction; I didn't win some kind of lottery to land a spot at one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Preparation meets opportunity, and that causes success if you're prepared to do your job and you practice a lot, more times than not you're going to be successful.

There is no question that I was given a lot of interesting and unique opportunities growing up... But I think people often misunderstand that I work as hard and want things just as badly as anybody else.

If you have talent, then success will come to you.

My philosophy is, if you work as hard as you can, you give yourself as many opportunities as you can to be successful and lucky.

I'm not a believer of luck. I think opportunity and hard work becomes luck.

So I just had to step up how I was doing it and the moment that I stepped up and the moment I focused all my energy on that is when things started to happen. So there's a direct relationship between my inspiration and my output.

If you are messing around all day and then scream for certainty, you're not going to get it. If you spend energy and do the work and develop that certainty, you'll get to where you need to be, even if you don't know exactly where that is.

I always believed in if you give your best, people will see it, and it moves to the next level. I got my first movie, and I gave it my best. Before I was done with that movie, I was offered my first feature film.

And I always found that the harder I worked, the better my luck was, because I was prepared for that.

You don't get results by focusing on results. You get results by focusing on the actions that produce results.

I have worked hard in my career, but I have been lucky as well.

The harder you work... and visualize something, the luckier you get.

I had the good fortune of speaking with Orson Wells many decades ago and he said 'Success is primarily luck anyway.' And I have been very lucky. Of course, Orson Wells was enormously talented and brilliant - so who am I to argue with him!

Many people may say that luck is important, but I think you create your own luck by working hard to ensure you don't miss opportunities.

You can have all the talent in the world, but without determination, you won't get very far.

The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.