Unhealthy Ambition Quotes

Fame for fame's sake is toxic - some people want that, with no boundaries. It's unhealthy.

My mother was the worst kind of stage mother. She would make me and my younger sister and brother little duckling costumes and put us in kiddie shows.

The manic pursuit of success cost me everything I could love: my wife, my three children, some friends I would have liked to grow old with.

There was no more dangerous kind of madman than one who devoted a good brain and a courageous heart to unhealthy ambitions.

Obviously there's something very seductive about movies, which can be attractive in a bad way if you're doing them for the wrong reasons — for money, or for fame. I hope I won't ever do that. I don't feel at home in L.A., I feel like I'm on holiday. It's nice to dip your feet in occasionally, but I think it's probably quite unhealthy to spend too much time there at once.

The motivations I had for being successful were somewhat dysfunctional.

Mr. Gilbert had the earnest mania for self-improvement which has blighted the lives of so many young men.

Is it possible to have too much ambition? Is it possible to be too successful?

The idea that competition is pointless is really something that speaks to me, especially in America where competition is really prominent and very overwhelming, and it doesn't bring the best out in you because what's going to push you is to bring others down.

I don't want to go around like some kind of bleeding giant or whatever, or thinking I'm a big deal, because it doesn't help you do your work. I think people like Hemingway got into an awful lot of trouble that way.

We're in a horrible, repugnant place now where kids are told it's their right and due to be hugely famous. Not good at their job, not good at anything, just hugely famous. This is not sane. Little girls think they'll be famous if they have vast breast implants and might as well die if they don't.