Yael Cohen Quotes

I ended up being a businessman unwittingly. I wanted to be an academic; I wanted to be like Einstein.

I initially wanted to be a teacher, and then I was going to become an engineer and build bridges and highways, but pretty soon I went into the business world. I never did get to be a teacher except in a different way.

I don't think one should ever come to my stage of life and have to look back and say, Gosh. I wish I hadn't spent all those years doing that job I was never really interested in.

I did a law degree but was miserable the whole time. I was supposed to join a law firm in London but instead went to Oxford to do a master's in philosophy.

I wanted to be a lawyer. Then a journalist. Actually, I graduated from university as a journalist.

I trained as a writer before I became a lawyer. I was headed for a life as an English professor, but that just wasn't me. I'm not a scholar; I didn't have a scholar's attitude toward literature.

Looking back I find it hard to believe that I could forge a career in anything other than football but I didn't do too badly in my final exams and there were a few business-related courses that interested me.

When I was 20 years old, I had no plans to ever be a filmmaker.

It was easy for me to leave acting for school, because I wasn't really in it as an adolescent for fulfilling reasons.

I wanted to do a show based on what my life would be like if I had never become a comedian.

I was always going to make music, but I cleaned up my act a lot just to be a good dad and a husband. That sort of changed my career professionally, too.

Well I could have been just a writer. I had been a hair dresser. I could have stuck with that.

I don't think anybody in my graduating class would have figured that I would be doing full-on single-camera comedies or sitcoms, or anything like that, but it certainly has been a part of my career.

I think, ultimately, looking back now, acting wasn't satisfying me 100%.

I had no intention of being a film producer, and I knew I wasn't passionate about engineering. I was always set on having my own business, controlling my own destiny.

I was pre-med, so I was going to go into the family business, more or less. But I came to my senses, luckily, and backed out, and decided to go to drama school.

I would have gone to law school, or gotten a psychology degree. I wasn't interested in sleeping on a futon forever. And what happened is I walked into auditions, and I had nothing to lose, because I had a backup plan.

People don't really know themselves until they're 30. Like most people nowadays, I went to university, got a degree and wandered for a bit. I trained to be a chartered accountant, which I didn't much enjoy, and it was only slowly that the idea of becoming a creative writer gelled.

If it wasn't for golf, I'd probably still be peddling jewelry or be in the sugar mills somewhere.

And I discovered after a couple years that I really didn't miss making movies.

I thought, 'I'll come back to New York. I worked for the 'Aspen Times' when I lived in Aspen. I'll work for the 'New York Times' when I live in New York.' It didn't work out that way.

For a long time I thought I should be a civil engineer. That seemed to be the only thing worth doing, and I chose the wrong subjects at A-level. I read all the sciences to start with, and then had to admit, 'This isn't what I want to do' and changed course.

I've been an employee all my life. Would I wish, if I could rewind it, to have gone down a different route? Possibly, but I've had a great time. Anyway I'm not ruling it out; I could still buy a business.

Well, I think I've had a fairly meandering career.

As an academic, this was not the lifestyle I had planned for myself. Now I see myself everywhere.