Quintilian Quotes

It was always disappointing to see that what I could really master in terms of form boiled down to so little.

It's a source of great sadness to me that my father died without having seen me do anything worthwhile. He was constantly having to make excuses for me.

My father was like Willy Loman, you know: he never really made it - and he was from a family where there were people who had made it.

I have an enormous sense of having failed in life.

It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody.

Some of us find our lives abridged even before the paperback comes out.

Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.

I sleep till one, and I'm always surprised when someone in blue rinse on a talk show says, 'You're a genius, Mr. Newley, you do so many things.' Tony Newley never realized his potential, did the things he should have done.

Every day, people settle for less than they deserve. They are only partially living or at best living a partial life. Every human being has the potential for greatness.

The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.

Every year, I am reminded of the kids who aren't in the freshman class and aren't graduating. I remember every single one of them. That is the worst of times for me, to see the future snuffed out.

Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.

I always hated being a child. I always felt like an adult trapped in a child's body.

It sounds ideal, a sort of beach childhood. But it wasn't really. I didn't use the beach very much at all.

I'm the first to admit that I never achieved my potential as an actress.

I intended to be famous by the time I was 16 and rich by the time I was 20. Curiously, it didn't pan out!

Geniuses sometimes end up very unhappy, without a penny.

The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.

It's sad that some people who have one exciting moment spend the rest of their lives rehashing it.

Sometimes you have a poem that you really want to write and it never happens.

I'm 47 years old, and I have to accept the fact that I'm probably not going to set the world on fire... If I was going to do that, I would have done it by now.

Many feel discouraged because they have not measured up to their potential.

Having been built in the fashion I was as a child - created and then deflated - has left me with a distinct feeling of failure. Because I did not live up to my precocity, I experience it to be like a cross between a has-been and a never-was.

You never forget the feeling of not getting to the World Series. Yes, it sticks with you.