Jodi Kantor Quotes

All through high school and college, my parents would ask me over and over again, 'What are you going to do with your life? What do you want to be?' Well, in my heart I wanted to be a singer like Bing, but I worried about the reality of that dream. Did I think for one minute that I had the voice to pull it off? Of course not.

Before Hollywood happened to me, I just took a break to think about whether I belong in the industry or whether I should be listening to whatever people were telling me.

From the age of 12, I had an understanding that singing was something I loved to do more than anything, and I did say to myself, 'Why not?' But there were definitely some doubts along the way.

The hardest part when I decided to move into acting was trusting I'd made the right decision.

I never even dreamt of being a writer because I didn't feel allowed. When I was a child I was terribly ambitious, but I didn't know at all what this great thing would become.

I had it in my head when I was in college that I wanted to be a writer, but it took me a long time to commit to being a writer. Up until then, I had worked one dead-end job after another while writing on the side.

My becoming an actor was a massive shift for me, and a terrifying one.

I remember all the stages in my career where I almost didn't have enough confidence to try for something, almost didn't have the guts to follow something I was excited about doing, because I didn't know anyone else who'd done it, or other people made me question it.

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

I told everyone that acting's for losers and I needed to get an education. But something kept telling me to give it one last chance. In the end, I lasted a month on the M.B.A. and then decided to quit, come back to L.A., and try again.

I didn't have the confidence to leave the band because of a solo career, or anything like that. I just wanted to grow.

I ask myself a lot of question about my work as an actress. We shall see. Plenty of friends tell me, 'Of course you must continue acting,' but I'm not sure.

Any goal worth achieving involves an element of risk.

I had grand visions of being in professional sports. But when reality set in, I went, 'Oh, OK. I'll just move to Hollywood and be an actor.' I didn't want to look back on my life and wonder, 'What if I had done this? Or I had done that?'

Unless I try, I'm never really going to be at ease with myself.

I missed so many opportunities along the way to do what I wanted to do because I didn't have the confidence to tell myself, much less anybody else, 'Yes, this is the business I wanted to be a part of, and not feeling that I had the talent... and letting it go all the way through Notre Dame and then through two years of Navy service.

Until I was 21, I wasn't going into the media. I was a professional show jumper; I was going to have a farm... Then my father died, and it changed my life. I realised I had to have a go at being a journalist to see if I could cut the mustard.

Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.

I don't know if I work in order to do something, or in order to know why I can't do what I want to do.

Modelling was never in my plan. Never.

Where I came from, the idea of going into show business was just ridiculous; in fact I didn't tell anybody because I knew people would laugh at me. So I sort of snuck around and got some pictures and got a resume together and, of course, lied and said I did all kinds of things I didn't do.

I was always told that music isn't a 'realistic' path to take, and like a normal human being, I doubted myself over and over because I was afraid of failure.

I never admitted what I wanted to do for a career to anyone until I was 26. I wish I'd piped up at 18.

At the start, I had no idea to go into fashion, because I thought people would think I was stupid. I don't worry about those things anymore.

I would hate to be 65 and think, 'What if I had tried to be an actor?'