Stephen Gaghan Quotes

My mom wanted me to apply to Princeton, cause she just I guess since I was a kid had this dream that I would apply to Princeton, and it was not happening.

My parents were not pushy or anything like that. I think my mom was still expecting me to be an astronaut, but now she is very happy that I'm not doing that.

I was gonna be a cosmetologist. I didn't really want to. I wanted to be in a band. It kind of worked out.

I remember failing my Princeton interview. My mom wanted me to apply because ever since I was a kid she had this dream that I would apply to Princeton, but it was just not happening.

My mother wanted me to be a writer. But she was a child of the Depression and never understood that she wasn't poor. So, you know, the idea of not having a job, it would creep through. But she tried very hard to be subtle about it.

Both my parents were amateur badminton players. My father is a scientist and wanted me to be a doctor. But my mom was very aggressive and loved badminton. She pushed me right from the age of nine to take up the sport.

So when I told my parents I wanted to go into acting because I was flunking out of my first year of junior college, they were relieved that I had picked something other than joining the army. But I can't imagine how they had high hopes for me.

My dad was the baby. When he was born they were already successful. They sent him to business school - he probably would have loved to have been a poet or a writer or something, and he was very creative.

I didn't raise Todd to be a writer, but he happened to be one anyway.

My mom is one of my role models in a complicated way. I learned from her how to be a good mom. She was one of those natural moms who really took to it. Her chosen profession was teaching. She loves kids. But she was extremely frustrated and unhappy because for much of my life she was a stay-at-home mom.

I was already in a band, and the teachers called my mum in and said: 'Abbey's so clever, it's a total waste if she follows her dream'. But I never wanted to do a job I didn't love, and I'd always wanted to be a model or an actress or a singer.

When I dropped out of high school at age 16, I didn't know I was going to become a writer - I just knew I'd never been happy in school, and I had this strong suspicion I'd be happy doing other things.

I'm an example of someone who never made it to university. I did have this dream to be a musician. I felt that this dream had an expiration date.

My parents never pressured me except to advise me against acting.

Until late in life, I was never quite good enough for my father, and I suppose that is part of what drives me even now, well after his death in 1992.

There was a point when I was very young where I remember talking with my mom about going to drama school and this was maybe when I was 8, 9, 10 years old - and she knew that I was also academically very capable, and she steered me in another direction.

When I was about 12, I came home from middle school and told my parents I wanted to be an actor. My father didn't say it to me, but he told my mom, 'No. I'm not going to allow that. He'll starve to death.' I grew up in a small town in Illinois where being an actor was not something people did.

From when I was 7 until I was 22, I played football. That was always my struggle as a kid. I always wanted to be an artist, but my parents were divorced, and my dad really wanted me to play sports, and that's how I got to see him. He would come pick me up or take me to practice, and he was always at my games.

When I was born, my mother was very disappointed. She wanted a son. I knew that from a very early age. So I was a tomboy.

My parents always said that I would be a lawyer or pilot or doctor - and I always just thought that's what I would do.

I saw everything on my parents, and I said to myself: 'I don't want to live my life like this.' They gave me everything they could but it was not amazing.

I was 25 when I'd told my parents that I was giving up steady work as an electrician to become an actor. They couldn't have been less enthusiastic if I'd proposed starting a commercial newt-breeding operation in the bathroom.

If you're at uni just because your parents have said so... There's a lot of success stories of people who have dropped out.

Growing up, I always said I would never go in to education. Both of my parents were teachers - my dad was also a principal and a superintendent. I just didn't want to be part of the school system.

Like every father who wants his son to be either an engineer or a doctor, my father wanted me to become a doctor. I never did.