James McBride Quotes

I don't think I'd be happy if I were satisfied. I enjoy challenge, and I wouldn't say that I'm an ambitious person career-wise or financially, really. I would like to travel more comfortably, but that's really about all I need.

In your twenties, you might want to be radical and change the world, but in your thirties, you might just want to be happy and ground yourself.

If I had accepted the offers to continue just for the sake of carrying on then it wouldn't have made me happy especially if it was just for money. Now I've got other projects to concentrate on.

Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

I couldn't think of anything else I'd rather be doing.

I don't look at things goin', 'Oh, is this gonna make me rich? Is this gonna make me a star? Am I gonna win awards?' If all that stuff happens, great. Who cares? I still have to wake up in the morning and go to work and be happy to do it.

The goal isn't to be successful; it's to be happy. And so it doesn't matter if I'm doing things in New York or teaching high school or I drop it altogether and sell coffee. The goal is to be happy, and people and relationships are what makes you happy.

I think success is finding happiness! Everyone certainly has different goals in life, and things that are important to them, and also things that are not important to them.

The No. 1 question I get from everybody is, 'How did you make it?' I'm like, Don't worry about making it. There is no making it. Just be happy.

I'd rather be happy than right.

People think they have to be ambitious. But at a certain age, all you want is to be around nice, decent people.

The secret to having everything you want out of life is the realization that you really don't want most of the things you think you want.

I've sort of mellowed out. It used to be: I want to be a star, do big movies. Now, being married, it's like the reasons I wanted to do that seem the wrong reasons. I want to have kids.

I don't mind getting older. I'm enjoying not having that raging ambition I've had all my life.

It's like you always think that when you get to a goal, you'll be happy. But then there is always something else that interests you.

I don't have any ambitions. I am looking forward to retiring, or at least having more time. When I was young I wanted more stuff, now I am older, I want more time.

This is the only life I'm ever going to have, so shouldn't I at least try to be happy?

Money and fame, it only makes you so happy. You gotta find other reasons to fight. I want a certain amount of money to do the things that I want to do.

A happy life is impos­si­ble; the best that a man can attain is a heroic life.

The only thing I know as I get older is that I don't really need to be No. 1.

The more difficult question for me is, do you remain successful for what you had done? I don't know. I think success is in your own eyes. But, I don't really want to ever feel like I've achieved success. Because then I'd be spoiled. I want to feel like I need to keep doing more. Maybe I get "content," "settled," and "success" confused. I never want to settle, but I would love to be content.

To me there's a difference between success and satisfaction. A lot of people have success and no satisfaction. I'm after satisfaction. I

Success for me is to feel happy - 80 percent of the time. That's been my goal in life. I think that comes from my father. He's a very optimistic, happy person. I'm not quite sure if I'll ever feel this, but I want to know how to be happy. I'm happy when I'm at work. I'm happy when I'm with my family or my dog. But there's always that feeling of, I'm not satisfied. I have that thing in my stomach where I just need to keep striving for things. In my mind, I want the fairy tale.

The tourists always seem to want something. On Thisby, it's less about wanting, and more about being." I wonder after I say it if he'll think I sound like have no drive or ambition.