Ryan Babel Quotes

When I first started playing in a youth football league, I was the worst kid on the team. I quit the first year. And then the next year, I was still the worst kid - I didn't even play.

I don't get cast for every job and I understand that.

After hundreds of auditions and nothing, you're sitting home and wondering, 'What am I doing?'

When I was 12, I had a coach tell me I would never be a championship pitcher. That devastated me. I was crushed.

It was the worst period of my life. I had all this gigantic acceptance as a kid, and all of a sudden there was this monumental rejection.

To be let go from a soap opera is the most embarrassing confidence basher in the world. It's like, 'Oh, if I'm not good enough for that, I'm not good enough for anything.'

You go up for hundreds, thousands of roles, and you get told no, no, no, so many times.

An incident that left an impression on me was the 1999 sub-junior national boxing championship held in Calcutta. I had trained extremely hard to get there but got kicked out in the first round itself. 'If others can win, why can't you?' I repeatedly asked myself.

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 remember when I was on 'Saturday Night Live' my first year, and I wasn't getting much. I was down; I was ready to quit.

My first show was called 'I Know I've Been Changed' in '92. I tried to do this show for years and years. It kept failing over and over and over again. Every time I went out to do the show, nobody showed up. I was like, 'What is this about?'

I'm talking to anyone who has been dumped - have not gotten the job you really wanted or have received those horrible rejection letters from grad school. You know, the disappointment of losing, or not getting something you badly want. When that happens, show what you are made of.

There are times when I think, 'I'm going to get this part. I know I am. I'm going to get this.' And then I don't, and I'm wondering, 'What happened? I went back five times!'

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of 'Lives of Girls and Women,' I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

I had tried out for theatre school and didn't get it four times.

I audition for a lot and don't get a lot.

I assumed no one would ever listen to my music, and for quite a lot of years, I was right.

Every time I put myself out there, I get rejected.

If I can't do something and excel at it and do it well, I have a tendency to give up on it really easy.

I go to Milwaukee, I get cut, that really put a funk in me. I'm like, 'Man, it's over for me. I can't even make it in training camp now?'

I failed my exams and my driving test. I failed to get into the Foreign Office and drama school. The big F was dominant in my early years.

I would say that 98 percent of the time you are not going to get the role you are going after. I think that can be very discouraging.

It's a weird profession, as I don't really consider myself an actor. I did at one point, and I went and started doing auditions, and I was so useless at them and so demoralised by doing audition after audition and not getting them and also not being able to take it in my stride at all. I just felt crushed and worthless.

Delays, disappointments and defeats cause quitters to give up in resignation; losers, to give in the frustration; winners, to come through with determination.

I received rejection letters for ten years (one on a napkin, written in crayon.) I had all my rejection notices stored in a box. When the box was finally full I took it to the curb and set it on fire. The next day I went out and got a temp job.