473 quotes
There are so many things about playing football that seem to me uniquely American. Anybody can succeed, anybody can play, but you've got to work hard to do it.
Dean Cain
Actor · American · b. 1966
A big part of who I am is just the way I was raised. Nobody is better than anyone else, and if you really work hard, you might get lucky and get what you want.
Martina McBride
Musician · American · b. 1966
Change is such hard work.
Billy Crystal
Comedian · American · b. 1947
There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.
Eddie Marsan
Actor · English
You have a little bit of talent, a certain amount of good fortune and a lot of hard work in pursuit of whatever truth you can find in it, and if you are really lucky, a terrific partner and I have that and those four things worked out for me.
Donald Sutherland
Actor · Canadian · b. 1935
Acting is really scary, but it's also challenging, fun, hard work. There's always an element of improvisation with every actor, even when something is really scripted.
Michael Pitt
Actor · American · b. 1981
What I work hard at doing is staying on a path of being kind and showing and proving that I'm a good person to society. That's hard. The talent, that's a gift. I just came here like that.
Erykah Badu
Musician · American · b. 1971
It is first and foremost very hard work! But I have a wonderful part and I do have fun. The company, cast and crew of 'Passions' are wonderful to work with.
Juliet Mills
Actor · British · b. 1941
There are no right and wrong ways to work in this business, but there are some basic common-sense practices. Work very, very hard and always be prepared; never give up; and once you get the job, give them more than they ever expected: - Shine!
Jimmy Smits
Actor · American · b. 1955
Look, I get it; you come home, you work hard, and you turn on your TV... You kind of want to escape a little bit and be taken away by something. Our show required you to pay attention, and if that's not what you wanted to do, then it wasn't going to be for you, and that's OK.
Will Arnett
Actor · Canadian · b. 1970
The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it.
Wayne Gretzky
Athlete · Canadian · b. 1961
People have always thought that I wasn't ambitious. They judged by appearances and were fooled. I was competitive. I wanted success and was willing to work for it.
Perry Como
Musician · American · 1912 – 2001
I'd had episodes before, but I swept them under the carpet. This time, I couldn't do that because everyone knew. I got on with the hard work of getting better and haven't had a blip in almost 10 years.
Margot Kidder
Actress · American · b. 1948
The success my children have had has helped me immensely. I've showed them a certain respect for this career.
Julio Iglesias
Musician · American · b. 1943
Happiness is the real sense of fulfillment that comes from hard work.
Joseph Barbara
Actor · American · b. 1967
Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work - and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.
Lucille Ball
Comedian · American · 1911 – 1989
That made me feel very disturbed, because it never seemed to be about how much hard work was involved. Ever. It was about... 'hazel eyes'. It does help if you can brush that stuff off.
Julia Ormond
Actress · British · b. 1965
How can I tell the eighth or ninth man on the team that I want you to work hard every day and I want you to improve and get better, but while you're doing that you're not going to get any minutes?
Isaiah Thomas
Athlete · American · b. 1961
I think that anything that you do, any accomplishment that you make, you have to work for. And I've worked very hard in the last ten years of my life, definitely, and I can tell you that hard work pays off. It's not just a cliche.
Cameron Diaz
Actress · b. 1972
If somebody says no to you, or if you get cut, Michael Jordan was cut his first year, but he came back and he was the best ever. That is what you have to have. The attitude that I'm going to show everybody, I'm going to work hard to get better and better.
Magic Johnson
Athlete · American · b. 1959
I don't have this fantasy about marriage anymore. Everyone says it takes hard work. Well, it kind of does - and I'm much more pragmatic about romance than I used to be.
Jennifer Garner
Actress · American · b. 1972
I am not that thrilled about the way our records sound anyway. Don't get me wrong, I work hard on them and I want them to sound fantastic but I'm happy to have another interpretation of them anyway.
Wayne Coyne
Musician · American · b. 1961
The academy gave me a grounding in discipline and hard work that has sustained me throughout my life, and the lessons I learned there I now try to impress on young people.
Georg Solti
Musician · Hungarian · 1912 – 1997
At Princeton I gained a great deal of pleasure from success in my classes. knowing that I could accomplish those things, and I realized that my success was directly proportionate to the work I put in.
Brooke Shields
Actress · American · b. 1965
I think it was the preparation and every thing Lombardi represented, you know, about hard work and that every game was important. So when you get to the real important games, you were ready to go.
Ray Nitschke
Athlete · American · 1936 – 1998
A lot of people say this honor validates my career, but I didn't work hard for validation.
Ryne Sandberg
The satisfaction comes because you work hard and it pays off. It is not as glamorous as I thought it would be, but, you know, I appreciate it more than I ever knew I would, and I love it more than I ever knew I would.
Lee Ann Womack
You set your goals to a point where they're attainable, but far enough away that you have to really go get them. And every year I push my goals a little bit farther away, and every year I work a little bit harder to get them.
Rafael Palmeiro
Athlete · Cuban · b. 1964
I don't know who I touch and who I don't. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don't have any secrets. I don't know the reasons I've been so well received.
Adam Sandler
Actor · b. 1966
Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success, and in some ways it's better to have failure at the beginning of your career, or your life.
Michael Crawford
Actor · English · b. 1942
The fans in Dallas were hard on me my first year, but after having a great year last year they are now supporting me. It feels great to have my hard work pay off, especially when the fans made it hard for me.
Steve Nash
Athlete · Canadian · b. 1974
It's just nice to work hard and be rewarded, which is having lots of people watch. And the icing on the cake is for me is to be able to walk around with pride, feeling that the product you put out is worthy of being watched. But honestly, it's not a big deal. I don't put too much stock in fame or celebrity anyway. I don't put it in the 'important' box.
Christopher Meloni
Actor · American · b. 1961
When I first arrived in Los Angeles I became a little bogged down in the whole success thing. Now I'm at a place in my life and career where I just want to work. It's what I do and it makes me very happy.
John Glover
Actor · American · b. 1944
And basically I always said when I was little that if I ever became successful or a celebrity, I would buy her this huge house and she would never have to work anymore. And I've done that. So I feel happy about doing that.
Missy Elliot
But I work harder now because I have so much more exposure. And actually the harder you work as a writer, the better you get at it. It's like anything else. It's a muscle you have to exercise. I write more now than ever.
Ron White
Comedian · American · b. 1956
I think that with a lot of hard work and dedication, I feel that I could be the best in the world. I'm still only 35 years old... I have a fresh start physically and mentally, and I feel that I can achieve my goal to be the best again.
Mario Lemieux
Athlete · Canadian · b. 1965
Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best.
Michael Johnson
Athlete · American · b. 1967
Nothing can substitute for just plain hard work. I had to put in the time to get back. And it was a grind. It meant training and sweating every day. But I was completely committed to working out to prove to myself that I still could do it.
Andre Agassi
Athlete · American · b. 1970
Getting in shape for this role, which is incredibly demanding, vocally, has been a lot of hard work, but I'm nailing it. I'm even kind of, at times, blowing my own mind, because I am even able to talk right now.
David Hasselhoff
Actor · American · b. 1952
I enjoy those small chats you have when people come up and talk to you about your work. It only involves a few seconds of effort to be nice to those people, and I am very grateful for the kind words that people have taken the trouble to express to me in person.
Helena Bonham Carter
Actress · British · b. 1966
You do the work and you want people to see it; but, um while I'm doing the work, the result doesn't matter at all to me. Ultimately, I don't, I don't care whether the film is - you know - some big giant box-office bonanza and I don't care if its a complete flop. To me, when a film gets made and it's actually finished it's a success. They're all a success in their own way.
Johnny Depp
Actor · b. 1963
I always wanted to be the best I could be at whatever I did. I didn't want to be the number one golfer in the world. I just wanted to be as good as I could be. I work hard, I push myself hard, and I probably even expect too much of myself.
Greg Norman
Athlete · Australian · b. 1955
If I wasn't dyslexic, I probably wouldn't have won the Games. If I had been a better reader, then that would have come easily, sports would have come easily... and I never would have realized that the way you get ahead in life is hard work.
Bruce Jenner
Athlete · American · b. 1949
I feel I have to work hard to nurture whatever talent I have as an actor. I feel like it's not natural to me. So I don't take it for granted... What I think is my natural ability - which is writing - I think I totally take that for granted.
David Duchovny
Actor · American · b. 1960
I think actually what I'm going to do when I'm done and take my next vacation, is I'm going to go over and start unions in Japan. I'm going to unionize Japan. Because the way they work those crews is so criminal. There's no overtime, so they can just keep going.
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Actress · American · b. 1977
It's like going to the gym everyday. It really is. I work hard on my craft, I sweat a little bit, I run a little bit, I might sprain an ankle every now and them, but it's all good and the more you do it, the more in shape you are and it's like a machine.
Nia Long
Actress · American · b. 1970
It's ironic that at age 32, at probably the greatest moment of my career, with The Godfather having such an enormous success, I wasn't even aware of it, because I was somewhere else under the deadline again.
Francis Ford Coppola
Director · American · b. 1939
Americans believe that people should work hard and get ahead on their own, but when disaster strikes and they need help with retirement or disability, Americans as a whole should come to their aid.
Jacob Hacker
Musician · American