Garry Shandling Quotes

I knew I didn't want to be a doctor but didn't know what I wanted to do. I prayed, and all I heard back was: 'Do comedy.' It was something I had never done before, but I gave in, tried comedy, and the rest is history.

I started studying at 26. Before that, I never thought of acting as something that I would ever try.

I like the idea of being so passionate about everything I do and the fact that I might wake up tomorrow and say 'I want to be a chef,' and just pour myself into that.

I think what I would say to my younger self, and probably to younger, just starting-out writers is that a lot of times you're just afraid to put yourself out there, and it's uncomfortable because it's working up the courage to do something, to push yourself to do those things.

I was 20 years old, working as a roofer and a telemarketer and driving a taxi, just barely getting by. A friend of a friend suggested I try acting. I was like, 'Why? What am I going to do? Community theater?' But I took a class, and the teacher thought that I had potential, so I moved to Vancouver and started auditioning.

In 2000, I realized I had reached that certain age when the parts get scarcer. So I decided to try my hand at directing.

I'd done all the things I thought a person had to do in order to be successful and fulfilled, like getting a great education and becoming a lawyer, and yet there was zero spark in my life. But there was no light-bulb moment. It was gradual. In the early 1990s, I decided to experiment and try some new ways of living.

Why do I want to be challenged or have challenges? That's why I don't go climb mountains.

I can only put myself in the process and try to learn through the process. Sometimes it will go well and sometimes it won't.

If I could write a letter to my teenage self, I'd probably say something like: 'You ain't gonna believe what will become of you.'

I think the moments that are difficult for anybody are when you see what your life could be, if only you had the courage to take the steps needed.

I had to know if I could make it somewhere else. I did not want to go through the rest of my life wondering what might have been without putting myself to the test.

It's important to me to keep testing myself in life so that I don't get pigeonholed.

In 2006, I made the decision to go after my dream. I was living in Atlanta and had a promising career in marketing, but I took a leap of faith and decided to move to New York, enroll in graduate school, and pursue acting.

I was already 50 when I started in television.

My first idea before coming to TFC was to change my life.

I think when you're really passionate about something, and maybe not every person is like this, but I think there's a large group that feels deep inside, I want something different, I want something more, I want to go on my own path. It's being comfortable being uncomfortable. Because to do that, you're going to have to jump outside of the comfort zone and it isn't going to be perfect. It's going to be scary. And to me, that's when great things happen.

What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt? Whatever it is, it may be your greatest opportunity in life.

I left my apartment in London and I sold everything. I literally had $1000 and a suitcase when I got on the plane. The next day I enrolled in my first acting class. We had some great people, Jim Carrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Molly Ringwald. It was very inspirational.

I'm a girl from Sweden. I took a lot of risks and went to New York by myself when I was 19 just because I read about it in a few books. I came here knowing nobody, having no money, and now I'm doing all these things like making records and videos every day.

We must risk going too far to discover just how far we can go.

I was so glad I did Beauty and the Beast. I always wanted to act, and if the bankruptcy thing hadn't happened, I wouldn't have started acting.

The best thing that can happen to anybody is to be sacked or made redundant because often that's when you think, "I don't want to become one of the living dead. I haven't got anything to lose, now I can start to follow my own dreams."

Maybe it's your time to lift off and fly You won't know if you never try.

You can't fly unless you let yourself fall