Limited Expectations Quotes

When I grew up, I was just another kid who wasn't going to college.

They thought in terms of: whatever you had that started you at the box office, this was it.

Butterfly was certainly a vehicle for me, and if it died, it still would have served its purpose, in spades. We never expected it to give me the visibility it has given me. It was just a small thing as a vehicle, and suddenly the whole world knew about it.

I didn't even dream of going to college. College was not in my definition. If somebody told me I was going to play for the Missouri Tigers in 2009, I would laugh at them.

I really bristle when I get called to events and people introduce me as one of the top black anchors in the country. You know, that's very insulting. I'm striving to be one of the best anchors in the country. Handcuff me like that. What you're saying is, 'You're black. You should only expect to rise to the level of the best at being black.'

You'll never please everyone, but you only have to please a few people to get an offer.

I'm not gonna get it all right, but I take my victories, as small as they are.

I never even thought about playing professionally. I didn't think that was a possibility for a little kid from Illinois.

I got the 'I don't want the normal job' bug. At home, we have countless career advisors who would tell us to work in department stores and stay below the bar and not overreach our grasp. I didn't believe any of them.

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls 'You can have ambition, but not too much'.

I never needed much, and I never thought I'd get more than what I had. A trip to Burger King was the biggest thing in the world to me. Heaven.

When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything.

You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.

The well of Providence is deep. It's the buckets we bring to it that are small.

I think it's a shame that people are so quick to put you in a box; sometimes it's as if you do one thing, and that's all you're allowed to do.

One of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we've internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little from the world and from themselves.

As a teenager, I felt so hemmed in and trapped, both by the place I lived and the expectations others had about school, college, and a future career.

If you come from a normal family, you immediately start playing the role of a boy, a girl a man or a woman, but I'm sure you'll agree with me that those are only roles, limited roles, at that.

I feel like this idea of strategic voting has not allowed people to dream big.

I consent Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.

"Why is it sports is the only thing white people see us being successful at? I don't want to play football," he said. "I wanna be a lawyer." "That's fine with me," I said, a little annoyed. "I've just never heard of a Negro lawyer, that's all. You've got to hear of these things before you can imagine them." "Bullshit. You gotta imagine what's never been."

Let kids dream! Let them fantasize. Let them plan all these great things they want to be. Stoke it, instead of limiting what you think people can do and limiting what you think their capabilities are. And liberals, by definition, do that. They don't think anybody's capable of much. That's why government's need.

Sometimes because a woman is beautiful, she's not encouraged to be more, although she may have so much more to offer.