Career Setbacks Quotes

When I came into WWE after Monday Night Wars, it wasn't my greatest time in the business... but they kept bringing me back.

Prior to 'Pirates of the Caribbean' - the first one in 2003 - I had been essentially known within the confines of Hollywood as box office poison, you know what I'm saying? You know, I basically had built a career on 20 years of failures.

I had a great career and I enjoyed all of it, with the exception of losing.

I never had problems with injuries as a kid or in the youth team. My injuries started at Chelsea, when I broke my foot during a pre-season game. That was just pure bad luck, but after that, I had some muscular injuries, too, so I had to get to know my body better.

'American Idol' has done a great job of defaming my name and throwing a lot of mud at me for the past two years, so that set up a lot of roadblocks for me.

Not to sound too pathetic, but there have been long stretches where I haven't been able to get a job.

Wherever the career wasn't going the way I wanted it to, I would experience those disappointments, and I would put them somewhere where I could say, 'Come on now, you're still working. Keep your focus where it belongs.'

Ever since I left the 'Sunday Times' there has been a group of scribes waiting for me to fall on my face, and having a go at my commercial record, looking to pick holes in it.

Many, perhaps most, people who lose their jobs are mistaken about the reason for which they lost their jobs. Some will say that they're failures, others that their boss had it in for them, and others yet that they were sure their career ended because of a stupid faux pas they made at the company picnic.

I think that everyone who is going to really move up has got to go through some trauma...I'm much more respected in my new job, than I was as the head of the Warner Group, because I survived being thrown out the window, going splat on the concrete, and walking.

Work hard. And have patience. Because no matter who you are, you're going to get hurt in your career and you have to be patient to get through the injuries.

If you haven't had a few dents in your resume, you haven't tried.

You never get over losses. I've never gotten over one loss I've had in my career. They always stick with me.

I did odd plays, took up small roles. The good part was that the audience always remembered me. However, it used to be quite embarrassing when people used to ask why I was not coming in movies anymore.

Early on, I had five jobs in a row where I was either fired or canceled.

Every person goes through a bad phase. Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan, too, had a rough phase in their careers. In my case, it was unfortunate that my personal problems came up at a time when I took a break to rejuvenate myself.

Most of my career was negative.

Being rejected is not nice, and it never gets any easier no matter where you are in your career.

Hits and flops happen in everyone's careers. Be it an actor or a filmmaker, you can't let that affect your conviction.

I was fired from my own television show, CBS's Family Law. It was the second time this had happened in my career, the first being when I was fired from The Facts of Life. I had been grateful to work in TV for so long but had always been chasing a career as a feature writer-director and had completely failed.

If you don't encounter setbacks in your career, if you don't have doubts and disappointments , let me tell you, you're not dreaming big enough.

Many a promising career has been wrecked by marrying the wrong sort of woman.

In private enterprises men may advance or recede, whereas they who aim at empire have no alternative between the highest success and utter downfall.

I knew my knee was getting worse at Villa. The first season was dreadful and we went down. But speak to the Villa fans - take away the last three years - they were saying at the start that I should be playing for England.

I'm satisfied with what I've done. I'm not satisfied with what has happened in my career, some of the real roadblocks I had to overcome.