David Bonderman Quotes

I didn't foresee my career. Things happen.

The beauty about my career is that none of it was really calculated.

'Downton' has really pushed me to a new level in my career, but it's not like I have a big career plan. They are about as useful as a birth plan; they should be burned.

I never planned my career. I never planned to be president of Harvard. People would have thought I was crazy, probably, at the age of 8 or 10 or 20, if I had said that. So what I would say to people planning their careers is to be ready to improvise. Be ready to follow up on opportunities as they unfold.

I describe my career path as a zigzag, not a ladder.

I never had planned for my life and my career.

You know, it looks like I have a varied resume or a varied career, that I've made interesting choices, when the truth of the matter is, in a way I've just kind of piece-mealed a career together, you know?

I think because of my background - I went through university and did an academic career and fell into acting - I've never had a game plan for my career because I got into it quite ad hoc.

I mean, I knew I wanted to do this kind of thing in school, but to actually have somebody that would bring you into that world, that was really exciting, you know?

Goals are ever-changing. I didn't set out to be in a 'Star Wars' film but now I've been in one.

I suppose that if I could have quit, I would have, because in those days I never wanted to be an actress, the acting was something to do while I waited for a chance to study writing and directing. But I guess I was just meant to be an actress. Because, here I am.

A career path is rarely a path at all. A more interesting life is usual a more crooked, winding path of missteps, luck and vigorous work. It is almost always a clumsy balance between the things you try to make happen and the things that happen to you.

I have never chosen my next job. I focus on what's in front of me, and serendipity steps in.

When I was younger, I talked to the adults around me that I respected most about how they got where they were, and none of them plotted a course they could have predicted, so it seemed a waste of time to plan too long-term. Since then, I've always gone on my instincts.

I've never been good at making smart career decisions or doing the right strategic thing, and yet somehow it's all led me to exactly the kind of career that I would have dreamed of having - if only I'd been smart enough to dream something like that.

I don't think anybody in my graduating class would have figured that I would be doing full-on single-camera comedies or sitcoms, or anything like that, but it certainly has been a part of my career.

I've never been conscious of having any real career plan, and I do not have a wish-list of actors, directors, screenwriters, or cameramen I'm hoping to work with. Life, I feel, has a way of leading us to the right situations and people, or at least to interesting ones.

We're all on a journey. The average American switches professions four times. I'm lucky to be in a business where I can change the character I am playing every couple of months.

My whole career is just terror, from beginning to end. That's kind of my thing. A lot of happy accidents happened.

The thing that I look for in a script - I'm not looking for anything next because you never know where life's going to take you, so you can't just expect, 'I want to do this next.' So I'm not expecting anything; I'm just hoping.

Nothing is written in stone, as a career is an unpredictable journey.

I never could have planned this, and now I'm in my ideal situation career-wise and just sort of where I am in my life, and I'm super happy with how everything's going.

It seems like the good things that have happened in my career are things that you don't try to plan and push, and make it happen, it just seems to happen.

When I look back on my career - if that's what it is - it looks a bit like a crazy quilt, and I think it's just really because, when one job has finished, I've never really been in a position where I had three or four options.

I've spent about that amount of time trying to tell the public that there was purpose in... my business, my career and the roller coaster ride... how the people I associated with worked together.