Unearned Success Quotes

Not having gone to drama school, I always feel like a bit of a fraud, but so far it looks as though I've not been found out.

Nothing is more despicable than to reach fame by crawling, position by cringing.

I'm convinced part of the reason I got signed is because of who I am, and it makes me sad.

I haven't had to struggle very much. I haven't paid my dues. I think I have been lucky.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are affected more by the idea of fame than the actual work ethic involved. A lot of them just want to be reality TV-type people who don't do anything.

I remember feeling guilty that I had a good childhood. I thought everybody who is famous has to have a desperate childhood and work his way out of it, but I had a great one.

I was not broadcasting St. Louis Cardinals baseball because I was accomplished. I was broadcasting baseball at 21 years old because I was Jack Buck's son. I had a billion advantages.

There's just a lot of really young, entitled people. I don't think a lot of these young people have to work very hard. They're found on YouTube and, boom, thrown into the studio, so they think they can get anything they want.

A couple of people I knew went to university apart from me, but all the way through I was the smartest kid in the school. That's luck, but I was proud of it. And I was also proud of doing well without trying. As you get older, and it took me a long time to realise it, that's a disgusting attitude, revolting.

It is a wretched thing to live on the fame of others.

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.

Any time someone achieves success before they've earned it, it always comes back to haunt them.

I would prefer it if people thought that I didn't work hard, that I just played the guitar for three minutes a week and was like, 'Check out this song - what do you think?' That would be ideal. I would prefer telling people that I'm just truly talented.

If you're born with a gift, to behave like it's an achievement is not right.

Everything that ever happened to me fell in my lap.

I constantly think I'm a fraud - that this success is not warranted or justified.

People get successful and they start saying, 'Well of course I am! I was chosen! I'm special!' No, you're not.

George W. Bush was born on third base and somehow got the idea that he hit a triple.

If everybody's a winner, nobody has to try very hard.

Someone once referred to modeling as being like winning the lottery gene pool. It's such an odd way to put things, but what is different about modelling is that the industry often picks you.

I saw a lot of people have success handed to them that then exploited it. They didn't protect it or cherish it.

I'm used to the egos in the 1960s, '70s and '80s where people just expected massive success and thought it was their birth right to be successful.

Certain people get an opportunity because they happen to be in the right place at the right time. It has no bearing on their talent. I don't think we should look at it and feel bitter about it. That's the way the cookie crumbles in all professions.

Don't act like you've arrived when you're just receiving the invitation.

In Hollywood you just fail upwards.