Personal Trajectory Quotes

The course of our lives is not determined by great, awesome decisions. Our direction is set by the little day-to-day choices which chart the track on which we run.

I didn't intend to become an actor.

I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961.

I'm not really a conspiracy nut, but I think if I went down a slightly different route in my life instead of meeting and marrying the person I met, I may have gone down this other direction and got myself stuck in my head with my ideas and my thoughts and I'm into UFOs and paranormal subject matter.

To my way of thinking, an actor's course is set even before he's out of the cradle.

If it wasn't for 'Kill Bill' I probably would have been back in New Zealand three months after I left, and if it wasn't for 'Death Proof' I don't think I would be pursuing an acting career right now.

For me, I met my husband when I was going full steam ahead of what I wanted in my career. We sort of intersected and were like, 'Oh, hi, hello!' We were both on our way somewhere to speak and then just kept going together.

Each person decides in early childhood how he will live and how he will die... His trivial behavior may be decided by reason, but his important decisions have already been made: what kind of person he will marry, how many children he will have, what kind of bed he will die in... It is incredible to think, at first, that man's fate, all his nobility and all his degradation, is decided by a child no more than six years old, and usually three... (but) it is very easy to believe by looking at what is happening in the world today, and what happened yesterday, and seeing what will happen tomorrow.

You'd never plan a career like I've had.

A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.

Honestly, people told me to. It was weird, I graduated from school, I never thought I'd live in L.A. and I always wanted to be to New York. I assumed that would be my trajectory - that romantic ideal of moving there and doing plays Off-Broadway and being scrappy about it. Then we did a showcase in New York and a showcase in L.A., and for whatever reason the response that I generated in L.A. was significantly more enthusiastic.

A lot of folks feel like my brother and me or other politicians chart out their careers from Day 1 until the end. I've never been like that.

If I had been brought up in America, I think I would still have had the same sort of job as a writer.

I feel like every actor charts a different course in their respective career in the industry. Everyone has an individual journey. So, you can't compare one to another.

People's lives really do turn out differently. And it certainly can't be explained by how intelligent you remember them being when they were sitting next to you in organic chemistry class.

I didn't join a bank because my father worked in a bank or because I thought I was going to be a banker or because I thought I was going to be where I am today.

Without 'The Brady Bunch,' my guess is I would have become an engineer working on new plastics or something.