Melvin Van Peebles Quotes

Nothing has been easy for me... I've always had to work for everything I've gotten and everything I've accomplished.

I want to be an example of a guy who made something of himself out of nothing. A guy who overcame the odds of a tough childhood, who worked hard, who didn't let his surroundings get the best of him and lead him to jail or the graveyard. Where I ended up - being a comedian, a TV star, and a movie actor - might be unique, but my story is not.

You think about the artists I look at as icons, and you assume they were instantly embraced. That's usually not the case. In reality, they had to overcome a lot of noes to get where they wanted to be.

I've had to fight for everything.

I been through some things but I worked hard to get to where I'm at.

Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats.

I've had a very unusual background in science - not the usual route of planning on being a scientist from age 3. I think my story shows that success is more about personal motivation and determination than it is about where you were born or what your economic status was.

I had five years of failure, really, before I had the first initial sign of success.

The triumph can't be had without the struggle.

When I was coming up as an entrepreneur, I had to fight for everything I got, and there was no clear roadmap of how to be successful.

I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it.

There've been many a season where I couldn't get work, and I think that you learn character development and you learn how to really want what you do in life when you can't really do it.

Most of the time you will fail, but you will also occasionally succeed. Those occasional successes make all the hard work and sacrifice worthwhile.

I think it's a great thing to have failed in life and then pulled yourself up by the boot straps and actually done something, because then you appreciate it more.

It's so funny looking back, but my so-called overnight success actually took 15 years. I remember when I didn't have any money, and my only car was mom's Hyundai.

I have to work extra hard because I am dyslexic. People said that I couldn't be an actress, but I'm proving them wrong. Acting has helped me overcome the challenge.

There were times I didn't think we would ever make it, even when we were cranking two out a year.

It doesn't matter how successful you are in this business, it's tough to get through the next door.

I like struggle.

I've worked hard over the years, I've been injured and I've worked hard through it, and I've made it.

Behind every successful man there's a lot of unsuccessful years.

I admire Brad Pitt, honestly, just because of how he started and the obstacles he had to overcome to have the career that he's had.

I grew up in this poor place, with very limited circumstances, at about 16 years of age was sent by my family to work, and instead of remaining in the position into which I was sent, I somehow worked my way out of it without any help from anyone, just luck.

I did everything I could to stay in college and pay my own way, so I think that if success hadn't come so quickly, I would still be pursuing it.