I knew I was going to be successful from day one. From day one. That's why it throws me whenever someone says it was such a fluke that I was successful.
I throw down the gauntlet to chance. For example, I prepare the ground for a picture by cleaning my brush over the canvas. Spilling a little turpentine can also be helpful.
'Imposter Syndrome' is the feeling of wearing a mask and playing a role that one does not feel at home in. It is when you feel like you or your work is a fluke and that you're a dwarf amongst giants. Many of us have this, especially when we're in some sort of creative industry.
How can you think about the world without factoring in the unforseen, the fluke event?
Fortune is either with you or it's not.
I think our first record was a fluke, really. The fact that it went platinum and all that, it was all due to one video and the timing being just right.
I wasn't campaigning for a role in a Hollywood television series, it was a fluke. So you've got to have a measure of good luck, you really have, being in the right place at the right time.
Getting into television was a total fluke.
Everyone gets lucky once in a while, but no one is consistently lucky.
Given the infinite number of coincidences that could happen, very few ever actually do. The universe exists in a coincidence-hating state of anti-fluke.
I think there's a danger that some people look at the success of my first movie as a fluke. So I want to make sure that my second film is an even bigger success. Then if I direct my third movie and it's terrible, it'll be okay.
The beginning of my career was so brilliant. It wasn't until ten years later that I went, 'Oh, that was a big, fat fluke and, boy, was I ever lucky.'
Sometimes in this game it's as good to be lucky as it is to be good.
Winning once can be a fluke; winning twice proves you are the best.
When I think of some of my earlier work, it really seems a fortunate coincidence that I succeeded.
What I've realized is that all of these people are so successful because they love what they do and they work exceptionally hard. No one gets successful in this business by fluke really. There are probably a couple of exceptions but most people just work so hard. They are working every day and they are doing their prep.
It wasn't like I felt I was on a wave. It was just so easy. It is only afterwards that I thought I really had a bit of good luck going on there with Yazoo.
I did have a lucky thing going on there in my throat.
You can never predict a hit.
In the early days, I just got lucky. I would audition for everything and just happen to land in something pretty respectable, like 'Freaks and Geeks,' my first job, which was a complete fluke.
It's luck that one thing works out and one doesn't, it's sort of happenstance.
I have always felt a little strange about it being so unique that I'm not a train wreck. Like, this weird fluke that I'm not - partying all the time.
The fact that I got Drugstore Cowboy at all was a fluke.
With luck on your side, you can do without brains.
The real excitement and big deal for me started when I got cast in the first X-Men, which was sort of a fluke.
