Tim Van Patten Quotes

When you first start working, you take whatever job is offered, because you have to build your resume. But you don't think about what you're building.

I got the first job and kept going. Once I got a job, I very much wanted to keep getting jobs, basically. I did try to learn what I could in those first couple of decades.

I think in the early part of my career, the roles were so disparate that it never gave anybody an opportunity to understand my essence and what I would be good at doing, as opposed to what I would not be good at doing, so these little moments of beautiful things that were happening to me were consistent, but very few and very far between.

You take the job, you learn from it, and you move on.

Never turn down a job because you think it's too small; you don't know where it can lead.

I started out as a lawyer and came in laterally to Goldman Sachs. So I learned myself that life is unpredictable. That you really should, in terms of your career, try to be excellent at what you're doing. I think if you focus on your job, and you focus on being broad in the context of your job, the next jobs follow from that.

As soon as I was old enough to drive, I got a job at a local newspaper. There was someone who influenced me. He wrote a column for The Guardian from this tiny village in India.

I don't think when I started off that I was expecting to become so specialized, but what happened is that when my career started, I didn't pick my first film. I was picked to do it, and it happened to be a horror film.

My first job was to run a concessions cart. Later, I found a position at the Pacific Film Archive. Thus began a long series of jobs, each one slightly better than the last, that continued for a decade, until I sold my first novel, and still goes on, even now.

I ended up meeting my manager because my sister was a receptionist at a management company. My manager is actually my same manager that I have today. That's how it started. I worked my way.

I think it's been confusing for people because I haven't had a linear career.

When you first start, you just want to get a job. It goes from that to really deciding what kind of work you want to do and what kind of actor you want to be - and it only gets harder.

As you grow up and get educated in the business, you go from, 'I want to do movies' to 'I want to work. In whatever.'

I don't believe that there is any particular book that influenced any 'career' I might have.

People don't know this, but early in your career, you don't just glide on to The Tonight Show.

A few months after graduation I was working in films. It took off pretty quick.

When I came into the industry I started with acting and I did drama during junior high and high school. I fell into dancing as a hobby, but whenever you need work, you try out different things. So I booked a lot of jobs for dancing and it kept rolling and rolling.

I think for anybody, regardless of what industry you work in, when you get a new job, and it's progressive in terms of your career, that is one of the best feelings in the world.

The decisions that you make in your career stem out from the experiences you have early on in your career.

The notion of 'building a career' had never been heard or dreamed of when I was young.

I think in terms of a career trajectory, it's good for people to be reminded that, in spite of seeing me a million times a day on a show for ten years playing the same character, I'm an actor, and actors like to play different people.

Starting my career as a kid, I was doing what jobs I got.

Broaden your work experience - either within your company or through your job progression in other companies.

I wanted to be an architect, and I ended up at my job in San Francisco, and if you would have asked me then, that was one of the greatest jobs that had happened to me in terms of my career.

I must say I have turned down several great companies, so I'd probably say I have to keep learning.