Andy Summers Quotes

I finished up my graduate degree in quantum mechanics, but underwent a bit of a personal crisis, recognizing that I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. It was too abstract, too far removed from human concerns.

I was working at a phone company. I got tired of my life and wanted to change it, so I did.

I saw leaving college as an opportunity to do something different with my life. I always thought that becoming an academic was going to be my path.

I was going to be a lawyer, and I had studied hard, but then it suddenly occurred to me in a very deep, profound way that I didn't want to keep practicing law for the rest of my life.

I was in college that first semester, and I was like, 'Wow, this isn't who I am. This isn't what I want to do.' I was like, 'Oh God, I'm going to have to go out and make something of myself, and I have no clue what that is.'

I'm coming up on 30. There are other things that I want to pursue outside of just performing.

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 worked in an insurance office for six years, and it was there that I just woke up one day and realised there was something massively lacking in my life, and a non-contributory pension and a subsidised canteen could not fill it.

I've been doing this since I was 12... I don't want to act much longer; I can't do one thing my whole life.

After three years in Chicago, I decided to call it a career.

I went through a lot of occupations. I was questioning my contribution to the world.

I thought I wanted to be a lawyer and was going through this growth phase.

I just didn't know what the heck I wanted to do with my life, so I drove out to California and got really lucky.

For a few years, I thought I was putting show business behind me. I was busy doing other things in life, particularly with politics. I was not out looking for films, really. I lost interest.

I don't have even a moment of regret for leaving my career behind.

Right after college, I was trying to figure out what to do. Teach? Act? Model? Do PR for the deaf community? And now I'm doing all I dreamed of and more.

I never pondered during my struggling phase that I should have become an engineer, as I knew that was not my life. I couldn't have lived it. It would have been a very claustrophobic life.

In my mid-twenties, I was with a conducting career, but I had never been to university and I wanted to. There were things I wanted to study in depth. I also wanted to see if I could survive without music.

I did modelling for five years, then I felt I wanted to do something different and challenging.

I took a long time after 'Curious' to find something I really wanted to do.

I didn't know what I wanted to do until I was 40. Seriously.

My mom just wanted me to do anything that was academic, whether it was become a doctor or be a lawyer. Engineering suited her... then I dropped out. It was not what I wanted to do at all; it just felt so unnatural, and I couldn't put my finger on why. I just knew it wasn't for me.

I had these false ambitions - marketing and MBA. I didn't do very badly at it, but I realised my calling was something else.

I'm glad that I walked into my purpose. I'm glad that I walked into something that was a smooth transition from football.

I had a nutty career. I was living in New York. Then I got to an age where my friends and sister were having children, and I started to think I needed to orient myself towards a world where it could happen.