Career Interruption Quotes

Nothing is more dangerous than discontinued labor; it is habit lost. A habit easy to abandon, difficult to resume.

My father - a Lebanese-origin small businessman - had a stroke in 1997 and couldn't work anymore. I paused my career and made sure he was taken care of by overseeing the sale of his businesses, but after that, I was able to dedicate myself to politics. It's what I had always wanted.

I was on my way to becoming a Hall of Famer and having my name in the rafters, but three surgeries in 14 months, that is not good. I wasn't the same player.

I've seen many female comics that a lot of people haven't heard of who are so funny, and I saw them come up, and they were working so hard, and then all of a sudden they had a baby, and they just got tied up in motherhood, and eventually, they kind of just stopped doing stand-up, and I thought it was such a shame.

I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.

A woman - even if she is the primary breadwinner - really needs to keep in mind that at some point, she may have a diminished earning capacity because of the fact that she will bear children. Of course, this is case by case. I had two kids, and it didn't really slow me down at all.

That's the main reason I gave up my career after John was born and I was pregnant with Andrew. I could not handle going away day after day. The thought of going away before they got up and coming back after they were in bed was intolerable.

I did not work for a year after 'Margarita With a Straw'.

In giving birth, I knew that I would have to take a break after I had a baby; I just didn't know that it would be, like, six weeks long. Taking a six-week break was a very big deal for me. I have never taken that long of a break from stand-up other than my honeymoon, which was 14 days long.

Not being active, your name doesn't go out there as much, and you lose the popularity thing. Also, you're not able to make a living. This is what we do to make a living: we go out there and fight. Not being able to fight for a year and a half and not able to bring in money, it definitely sets you back.

I just remember when my first child was born I called the personnel office and I asked them about their leave policies. And they said, "Leave policies? Women just leave and they don't come back." And I said, "But I want to come back." They said, "We have no leave policy." And then they said, "Why don't you apply for disability?" Well, having a child is not a disability.

After I left the 'Daily Show,' I was kind of sitting out for five years. I know what it's like to not be able to have that platform for my voice the way I want it.

My first full-time radio job at 21, I was there for only a couple of months before I was hospitalized. I wrote a resignation letter. My dad wouldn't give the letter to my boss at the time.

I took 18 months away to have my son, Joseph, and it was the biggest break I'd ever had in my working life of nearly 20 years.

But, being away from Formula One for a whole year, I think it's not easy to come back into Formula One because people forget very quickly about you - it was really hard to go back.

One thing I always want to clear up was the notion that I 'took time off to have a baby.' A lot people leapt to that conclusion because becoming a parent happened to coincide with film roles tapering off.

I had my appendix removed in my 20s. I was in the middle of a play with Helen Mirren at the Royal Court Theatre, a fabulous career break. Then two weeks in I began suffering the most horrendous pain and had to pull out. Sadly, by the time I'd recovered, the show's run had ended.

My career got sidetracked after fighting Holmes.

Back 20 years ago, I was recording with Bruce Springsteen, and his producer called me and said I had to be in the studio the next day to finish the sessions, and I couldn't. I had to be in court, in California. All this took like 10 years out of my life.

There are any number of reasons many talented people, particularly women, leave their careers for a period of time.

I haven't counted, obviously, but I reckon I've lost over a year and a half of my career through injury so far.

If a man aspires for a political career, he can start at 18 and go on and on. This is not true about women, who fall back when marriage and children happen, which are equally important. That is not gender bias.

I managed to slip two children out in the middle of my career and have been lucky with all the work.

When 'Frozen River' started to get really big, I was four months pregnant. So when these agents and directors wanted to meet me, I was coming in pregnant, and people didn't really take me seriously. They thought, 'This woman is not going to shoot another movie again. She's going to become a mom, and that's what happens.' But that was not the case.

You don't have to be in our industry to have a panic attack about your career when you're pregnant. Even if you're a lawyer, you can think, 'I'm scared to take time off because I don't want to get passed by.'