Grace Gealey Quotes

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 started off as a model and struggled for some time until I got a break as an actress. I was too stubborn to let go and was sure I was in the right place at the right time. I just fought and I think that's how I am where I am today.

Was I always going to be here? No I was not. I was going to be homeless at one time, a taxi driver, truck driver, or any kind of job that would get me a crust of bread. You never know what's going to happen.

I lived below the poverty line when I was young and starting out as a writer. But my wife and I kept trying to do things better, as anyone with ambition does. But just because you're trying doesn't mean you're always going to succeed.

I don't want no handouts. I want to get it out the mud.

No one is mocked with the yearning for that which he has no ability to attain. If he holds the right mental attitude and struggles earnestly, honestly toward his goal, he will reach it, or at least approximate to it.

I always hustled to make money and pay for school. I was never afraid of hard work.

The future rewards those who press on. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I'm going to press on.

No one succeeds without effort... Those who succeed owe their success to perseverance.

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.

I didn't have any money. I had a sense of terrible loss. But what I also had was a fire in my belly. I wasn't going to go back to waiting tables. I felt I had to be better at fronting a band.

I had a period of unemployment for about nine months after my first big break, and it's the greatest lesson I ever could have learned, never to believe you're home and dry.

I experienced firsthand what it means to be poor, what it means to go hungry, and that, I think, may be the reason, the root cause of why I'm able to work so hard, even these days.

Some people are born with very little; some are fortunate enough to have it all. When I grew up, we didn't have much. I had to hustle to get what I wanted... but I had that hunger for more. I didn't always make the right choices, but I learned from my mistakes.

A lot of times when people become successful, people don't really understand what they had to do or the sacrifices they made to do that, or they assume that they had money. This is coming from, like, a kid who was broke and lived with roaches and a single mom in Dorchester.

I feel like I still am struggling in a lot of different ways. I still have to fight for certain things. Certain jobs. At least I'm working and I'm thankful for that.

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.

When I started out, I struggled, and I was broke a lot. But I'm glad I struggled, and I'm glad I was broke a lot.

I never doubted that I would work, and every time I went to an audition, I went into the room with the knowledge that I was going to get the part. Ninety-nine times out of 100, I didn't.

I was a happy man, never working. Sometimes I saw days with no money to eat. It was not so difficult.

My career was one of just taking it step by step. I didn't know how I was gonna fare on the professional circuit when I qualified. I didn't know whether I was gonna make a dime. I didn't know anything but this one thing: I had some dreams, and I was gonna work harder than anybody out here to ply my trade.

People asked me what I want as an epitaph: "He Tried".

All great careers are carved out by the sword.

Look at how hard it was to get to where I am. It doesn't make sense to give it up.

That's what the grind is, doing all the little things knowing that something may not come out of it. It probably won't. But the goal is to get a shot at it.