Achieving Recognition Quotes

I still just like everybody else need to meet quotas with my spins, with my buzz and make my way into the office. It has to be undeniable; the world has to know about you before Jay-Z makes a call.

Certainly, I was typed. But what is typing? It is a trademark, a means by which the public recognizes you. Actors work all their lives to achieve that. I got mine with just one picture. It was a blessing.

I want to tackle the award-winning films. I want to be seen as an actor-actor.

I got a call for 'Aaya Na Tu' the same day that Forbes featured me in their list of 30 under 30. That day, I knew I had established myself as more than just a singer.

The most important thing for everyone in Gringolandia is to have ambition and become 'somebody,' and frankly, I don't have the least ambition to become anybody.

There is no employment in the world so laborious as that of making to one's self a great name; life ends before one has scarcely made the first rough draught of his work.

Today everyone is a star - they're all billed as 'starring' or 'also starring'. In my day, we earned that recognition.

I want people to appreciate my efforts in creating different genres of music and also the fact that I am now taking to acting in my own production.

When a young artist is ready, one has to bring him into the limelight.

The way I feel is I have to keep going out there and proving people. I don't want to be just a guy who has a couple of good years and then that's it.

That's the hard thing - getting started. You get started for a long time until you finally get to this point where people call you an icon or whatever they call you. It's nice. Suddenly the audience is with you more and they help you along and it's not so much that you have to do everything.

For American filmmakers, the Oscars is like a mystic thing. For me, it was being in a mirror of my dreams when I was dreaming of Hollywood when I was an adolescent.

For me, Sundance always felt big. It's not the only way to make your way, but for me, it was definitely that critical link between struggling artist, kind of working on my own, to actually working professionally and being connected and being seen.

Every time somebody ever told you that you weren't gonna amount to anything, you know, that's your time to shine, you know? You can show everybody and prove to yourself what you're doing is real and that it counts and that it makes a difference.

I'm not striving for fame, that's for sure. I don't particularly like the idea of celebrity. I would like to be successful with my music, so I realise that there's a balance to be made there.

Now I'm on the rise, doin' business with my guys. Visions realize, music [your craft] affected lives. A gift from the skies, to be recognized, I'm keeping my eye on the people, that's the prize

I always wanted praise, and I always wanted attention; I won't lie to you. I was a jazz critic, and that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted people to write about me, not me about them. So I thought, 'What could I do? I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't act or anything like that. OK, I can write.'

It was an honor to have our album and names mentioned on the Billboard charts.