Paul Newman Quotes

I think there was no other profession for me. I was either going into an insane asylum or to be an actor.

I became an actor because I didn't know what else to do. Academically, I wasn't good.

Maybe we can change some kid's life & stop him from becoming a welder or a sleazy lawyer.

I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.

I find I have to respond to a character or a story to choose a job.

I was never really sure what I wanted to do - I'm in awe of these people who knew at age 10 or 12 they wanted to be a brain surgeon, and they did it, and they still are.

I went into the family business. To me, it was the norm and not the exception.

I treated as few patients as I could as a medical student, and I never practiced medicine.

I figured out early on what I wanted to do.

I don't know, you know all through high school I just knew I wanted to do it.

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my case, I sort of fell into acting.

It's when children are 15, 16 or 17 that they decide whether they want to be a doctor, an engineer, a politician or go to the Mars or moon. That is the time they start having a dream, and that's the time you can work on them. You can help them shape their dreams.

The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.

Initially I had intended to study medicine, but before going to University I had decided that I would be better suited to a career in which I could concentrate my activities and interests more on a single goal than appeared to be possible in my father's profession.

I don't want to do anything that I'm not passionate about.

I could stay in Germany and start my coaching career there. I did not want to.

Well, I'm at some kind of crossroads in my life and I don't know which way to take. It's not about money, I mean, because I'm established enough now as a writer to get a reasonable advance if I wanted to do fiction.

I took a route of acting, rather than starmaking, so it cost me a lot financially.

I knew after my first lesson what I wanted to do with my life.

I think for something like law or medicine you really have to love it and I didn't love it.

I had to decide whether I would be a lawyer by profession and a revolutionary at intervals, or a revolutionary by profession and a lawyer at intervals.

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.

Senior year in college, a kind of confluence of events came together to have me pursue a career in acting. I was planning on being a lawyer; I double majored in history and political science. I took the LSAT and did horribly on it, and that was one thing that made me rethink a new direction.

I had to decide between doing 'Issaq' and continuing school and I chose 'Issaq.'

I did not choose acting as a career.